Operations update – October 2016

Following the Operations update (August), below are the final decisions that were made:

1. Competence management

Controller Of Site Safety (COSS) & Individuals Working Alone (IWA) alignment

• Issue: For a long time now, there has been a mismatch of the competence lifecycles between COSS and IWA which has inevitably caused confusion and additional workload for many people.

• Resolution: The Health, Safety & Environment Safety Competence Design Group (CDG) agreed that Sentinel can automatically extend the IWA competence (up to a maximum of 4 months) when the COSS Post-mentorship Assessment is notified to a record where IWA is also currently held. This will be handled by a task set up on the Midnight Maintenance Schedule. Sentinel will retrospectively apply the same rule to all Non-Network Rail cardholder records where the expiry difference between the COSS and IWA is between 0 – 16/17 weeks.

Allow Personal Track Safety (PTS) re-start

• Issue: When individuals change Primary Sponsors and are on ‘learning support’ for PTS, the new Primary Sponsor may not be ready to remove ‘learning support’ and requests that they attend a re-certification, however there is no process for this. The individual remains in ‘learning support’ until their competence ends, which can be years.

• Resolution: The most practical solution to this issue was to allow the recording of an ‘Allow PTS Restart Event.’ Relaxation of the rules to ‘Allow PTS Restart Event’ will be:

• 1. An ‘Allow PTS Restart Event’ to be logged against any Non-Network Rail PTS Holder at level 2 or level 3 (Fully Competent) at any time.

• 2. ‘Allow PTS Restart Event’ to then end the current PTS Competence for any Non-Network Rail PTS level 2 or level 3 Holder (the same effect as setting a PTS to Not Competent)

Controller of Site Safety Conductor Rail Permit Live Line Tester – COSS CRP LLT (P)

• Issue: Any full COSS who has attended the Conductor Rail Permit Live Line Tester training module to gain the new competence has been incorrectly awarded at probationary (P) level. This is due to the system being unable to recognise the difference between initial training following an initial COSS course, or a full COSS attending the bolt on module only.

• Resolution: This will be fixed within Sentinel on 12 October 2016.

2. 21-day account lockout update

After listening to feedback we have increased the number of days – from 21 to 30 – in which if you haven’t logged into your Sentinel account you will be automatically locked out. This is to cleanse the system, help it run more efficiently and only provide access to those who really need it. If you are locked out after 30 days and need to re-gain access then call the 24/7 Helpdesk (0330 726 2222) to get your account reactivated.