NPORS Crane Lift Supervisor Training (N405)

The Appointed Person plans the lifting operation, selects the crane and the accessories, writes the lift plan and appoints the team. The Crane Lift Supervisor takes that plan to site and runs it: briefing the crew, controlling the lift and stopping it if conditions change. The supervisor cannot change the plan, only halt the job and go back to the Appointed Person.

There is no formal requirement, but it helps a great deal and most candidates come from the lifting team already. NPORS expect enough crane and lifting experience to read a duties chart and judge whether the ground and the load match the plan. Tell us your background at enquiry and we will be honest about the right starting point.

Three days for a novice, with up to six candidates, one instructor and one machine. The refresher is a single day, also up to six.

The NPORS test sheet does not set one out for this category, so we confirm the route with NPORS once we know what the candidate has already done. The routes it does list are a three day novice course and a one day refresher, so if you are already supervising lifts without a card, the three days is usually the way in.

The NPORS N405 category. 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. A traditional NPORS card without the logo suits work outside construction.

Yes, and most groups prefer it. You supervise lifts on your own machine, your own ground and your own loads, using lift plans you will go on using. If the crane cannot be spared for three days we arrange a venue near you instead.

Yes. We run the N401 Appointed Person, the N402 Slinger Signaller and the N403 Vehicle Marshal alongside this one and sequence them for the same group, so a crew is covered in a single visit rather than a series of separate bookings.

The refresher is a single day and needs to happen before the card runs out. Once it has lapsed you are usually back onto the three day novice route, so it is worth putting the renewal date somewhere you will see it.

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.