Beena Nana, FIS Head of Skills and Training, discusses the Construction Skills Certification Scheme which is evolving into a digital competence system, helping sectors such as drylining create clearer training, carding, and compliance pathways under the Building Safety Act.
The Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) plays a key role in improving competence, safety, and accountability across the construction workforce by providing recognised evidence of training, qualifications, and health and safety knowledge.
With more than two million cards in circulation across 37 Alliance schemes, CSCS is evolving from solely physical cards and visual checks, into a digital-first, competence focused infrastructure driven by post-Grenfell reforms and the Building Safety Act (BSA). CSCS Alliance schemes work closely with industry bodies to ensure cards reflect the Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours (SKEB) required for specific roles, helping translate competence frameworks into practical systems that employers and clients can verify. For sectors such as finishes and interiors, this shift supports stronger professional standards, clearer career pathways, and greater confidence in workforce competence.
Drylining’s route to competence: How FIS is turning building safety reform into site reality
The post-Grenfell construction landscape has transformed the conversation around competence. CSCS cards currently enable individuals to demonstrate they have the appropriate skills and training for their role, usually a qualification and a health and safety test. However, cards and accompanying skills passports will soon adapt to more closely reflect sector frameworks as necessary, and include a culture of the ongoing development of skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours.
At the centre of this shift is the requirement for every individual working in construction to demonstrate competence through an appropriate combination of SKEB, the benchmark established under the BSA and championed by the Industry Competence Steering Group.
One of the challenges has been not simply defining competence, but making it work in practice. Nowhere is this more visible than in drylining, where FIS has developed a clear example of how industry led competence frameworks can be translated into practical, site-ready systems.
Working closely with CSCS Cards as the appropriate Alliance scheme and supported by the Construction Leadership Council and Build UK, FIS has created a structured Route to Competence for drylining that maps occupational standards directly to training pathways, qualifications and carding requirements.
Defining competence is only the beginning
One of the key lessons learned early in the process was that defining SKEB statements alone would not solve the industry’s competence challenge. The real test was whether competence frameworks could be translated into clear progression routes that employers and workers could realistically follow.
To achieve this, FIS focused on a series of practical questions:
• What are the correct entry routes into drylining?
• How does an individual progress from entry level to skilled status?
• What qualifications and evidence are required at each stage?
• Which CSCS card route aligns with drylining competence?
• What happens at card renewal?
• How can experienced workers transition into updated standards?
These questions may appear administrative on the surface, but they go to the heart of workforce reform. Without clear answers, there is a risk that competence becomes inconsistent, misunderstood or reduced to a paper exercise. FIS therefore approached the project not simply as a standards exercise, but as a workforce implementation programme.
Building a structured route to competence
The first stage involved mapping the SKEB requirements for drylining to define what a competent dryliner should know and demonstrate on site. FIS recognised there could not be a single route into competence. New entrants may follow apprenticeships or vocational qualifications, while experienced operatives require alternative pathways.
Working with CSCS Cards, FIS developed a structured carding journey aligned to occupational standards, setting out:
• recognised entry routes
• training and qualification pathways
• progression to skilled worker status
• alignment with the appropriate CSCS cards.
The result is a clearer roadmap for employers and workers.
Tackling the labourer card problem
One of the most significant aspects of the drylining competence framework is FIS’s position on Labourer cards. The green Labourer card is not typically regarded as the most appropriate pathway for individuals pursuing a career in drylining. Workers are generally expected to start on recognised red CSCS cards that support formal training and development, including Apprentice, Trainee, or Experienced Worker cards.
Historically, many workers entered specialist trades through labouring roles and gained skills informally on site. Under the new framework, however, this may leave workers outside recognised training and assessment routes.
FIS argues that structured progression is essential to maintaining consistent competence standards, while also giving employers, clients, and principal contractors greater assurance that workers are following approved training pathways.
Avoiding the ‘Big Bang’
Despite the urgency around competence reform, FIS and CSCS Cards recognised that introducing all changes at once could create confusion, disruption and capacity issues. Instead, the drylining competence framework is being introduced in phases, allowing agreed measures to be implemented first while more complex elements, such as Continuing Professional Development (CPD), are developed.
This staged approach gives employers time to adapt, allows training providers to build capacity, and enables systems for evidence and verification to be tested effectively. It also reflects wider industry recognition that competence reform requires practical delivery systems, workforce engagement, and realistic implementation timescales, not regulation alone. Enhanced renewal and CPD requirements are expected to be fully in place by the end of 2026.
Competence is not a one-off achievement
A major shift within the emerging system is the focus on maintaining competence, not simply achieving it once. Under the Drylining Route to Competence, skilled card renewal has become a meaningful checkpoint rather than a basic administrative process.
Renewal is set to require:
• Relevant recognised qualification
• Valid CITB Health and Safety and Environment test completed within the previous two years
• Fire Safety training completed within the previous two years
The inclusion of Fire Safety Training reflects the increased focus on fire risk and safety following Grenfell and the BSA. Looking ahead, CPD is expected to play a greater role in renewals. FIS is currently exploring how proportionate CPD can be evidenced and integrated into systems such as the My CSCS app, while ensuring it remains meaningful rather than a tick-box exercise.
The industry-wide challenges ahead
Although drylining has made significant progress, major challenges remain. One of the biggest is managing legacy competence, as many experienced workers may not hold qualifications that align with current standards despite having extensive practical expertise. FIS supports transitional arrangements that allow workers to address competence gaps through further training or assessment. Delivery capacity is another concern. If new training or CPD requirements become mandatory, sufficient provision will be needed nationwide to avoid bottlenecks and workforce shortages.
Consistency also remains critical, with inaccurate occupation titles or testing requirements risking confusion over card eligibility and competence standards. Ongoing collaboration between sector
bodies and CSCS Alliance schemes will therefore remain essential.
A blueprint for other sectors?
The drylining case study provides a practical model for the wider construction industry.
The FIS approach demonstrates how competence can be translated into:
• Defined occupational standards
• Structured training pathways
• Clear carding requirements
• Renewal processes
• Ongoing competence management
It also highlights the importance of industry led solutions, developed collaboratively to reflect site realities. This approach is likely to become increasingly important as clients, regulators, and insurers place greater scrutiny on workforce competence.
Beena spoke to Sean Kearns, CSCS Group Chief Executive, who provided an insight into the future direction of the CSCS system, outlining how it is evolving to support a more digital, data driven approach to verifying competence across the construction workforce.
From card scheme to digital infrastructure: What CSCS’s next chapter means for the finishes and interiors sector
Sean explained that for much of its 30-year history, the CSCS card was simply a physical pass to site, used to confirm qualifications and health and safety training. He said: “Today, CSCS is increasingly viewed as a digital skills infrastructure, built around 2.4 million cards across 37 Alliance schemes, combining verified credentials with on-the-ground checking patterns to create powerful workforce data. “The BSA has shifted competence from something static, checked visually at a point in time and stored away to something live and verifiable digitally using CSCS Smart Check.”
Smart Check: Verification and data-driven intelligence
CSCS Smart Check verifies all 2.4 million CSCS-logoed cards across 37 Alliance schemes, whether physical or digital, and is widely integrated into site access systems. Since 2024, it has processed over 66 million scans, commented Sean.
“Recent upgrades now capture location, site ID, and reasons for card checks, turning Smart Check into an evidence tool that supports the BSA’s Golden Thread by showing when and where competence was verified.
“Workforce Insights builds on this data by combining anonymised workforce information with Smart Check activity to map skills, demographics, and gaps across construction and the Built Environment. “This evidence base is already informing national skills planning and future training investment,” he said.
CPD moves to the centre
Sean went on to explained that the third shift focuses on cardholders, with the BSA requiring competence to be current, demonstrable, and based on SKEB. He said: “This is expected to increase the role of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in applications and renewals.
“The My CSCS app, now AI-supported, provides a digital space for workers to apply for or renew cards, as well as store additional qualifications, health and safety records, and CPD activity, creating a CV-style skills passport for employers and clients. “Items in My Skills are clearly marked as verified or self-uploaded, ensuring transparency around the status of each record.”
Where FIS CPD fits
FIS already delivers sector specific CPD aligned to its best practice and site guides, shaped by the FIS Working Group members in drylining, ceilings, partitions, operable walls, plastering and steel framed systems. The natural next step and one FIS is actively exploring alongside CSCS, is for FIS-issued CPD to land within My Skills as verified content rather than as a self-certified upload, explained Sean.
“For installers, that means CPD completed through FIS becomes evidence that travels with them: visible to site managers via Smart Check, factored into the workforce picture flowing through to Workforce Insights, and recognised when the card comes up for renewal. For FIS contractor members tendering for fit-out and finishes packages, it means a cleaner, faster route to assembling and proving a competent workforce, with the sector’s own training visible inside the same infrastructure main contractors are already checking against.
“The card hasn’t gone away. But what sits behind it is now a connected digital infrastructure, which can be of benefit to individuals, contractors and wider industry,” he concluded.
