NPORS Excavation Marshal Banksperson Training (N027)

It is the NPORS category for the banksperson working with an excavator on an excavation. NPORS list it as Excavation Marshal and Banksperson. Directing vehicles and plant movements around a site more generally is a different category, the N133 Plant and Machinery Marshal, and some sites want both.

One day, including the theory and practical assessment, with three candidates to one instructor and one machine. Someone already doing the job can sit the experienced worker route, which allows six candidates.

That is a spelling slip that has followed the category around the industry. The NPORS category is Excavation Marshal and Banksperson, N027. It is about excavations, not building evacuation or fire marshalling, which is a separate subject entirely.

Yes, and it is a large part of the day. The course covers service plans and records, locating equipment, trial holes, safe digging practice, recognising services as they appear and what to do if one is damaged.

Yes, and knowing when to is the point of the training. The marshall controls the working area and stops the operation when the ground, the people or the traffic change. An operator who cannot see what the marshall can see relies on it.

The NPORS N027 category on an NPORS card. Without an NVQ that is a Red Trained Operator card; with the relevant NVQ it is a Blue Competent Operator card. Either carries the CSCS logo only while you hold a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass taken within the last two years.

That is for your risk assessment rather than for us to decide. Where an excavator is working close to people, traffic or services, a trained marshall is the usual control, and most principal contractors now expect the person doing it to hold a card for it.

Yes, and on this category it is the better option because the practical uses your dig, your machine and your access. There are no scheduled dates: we run it when your people can be released, and a group can be done in a day.

NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.

We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.

There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.