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RENEWAL OF APPROVED
TRAINING FARRIER CERTIFICATION
This letter tells you of important changes in the requirements for ATF
Certification. These have been made by the Farriers Registration Council
(Council) as a result of concerns expressed and arguments put at an open
meeting on 25th August 2004, chaired by the Chairman of the Joint Farriery
Training Committee (JFTC), to which you and all other ATFs were invited.
Views expressed at this meeting were considered by the JFTC at its meeting
on 15 September, and recommendations were then made to Council and considered
at its meeting on 11 November. Following extensive debate at a meeting
open to the public, Council came to a number of conclusions and the staff
have been instructed to put them into effect immediately. The main concerns
and the Council's response to them are summarised below. (Decisions are
in bold type).
Underperforming ATFs
The concern was that the requirement that all ATFs had to take the L11
Course (Enable Training through Demonstrations and Instruction) and pass
a shoemaking test before they proposed their next apprentice penalised
good ATFs instead of the minority of ATFs who were underperforming.
1. Underperforming ATFs. The JFTC and FTS staff will
work together to develop ways of identifying underperforming ATFs. The
measures should be evidence based and should take into account factors
such as apprentices referred from college for failing assessments, apprentices
back-coursed, field officer and college reports etc. If you have any suggestions
as to how these measures could be developed please let Colin Gregg know
as soon as possible. Existing ATFs will not now be required to take the
L11 or the shoemaking test before proposing a new apprentice.
They may be required to do so if they are identified as underperforming,
and will have to do so before 1 January 2009 (see below).
Ten year validity of ATF Certificate
The concern was that the requirement to take the L11 and shoe making tests
effectively curtailed the 10 year validity of the ATF Certificate to 6yrs.
2. L11 Course. The L11 course is considered to be important continuing
professional development (CPD) for ATFs. Feedback from those who have
already attended the course, including some very experienced ATFs, is
that they found it useful or very useful. Council nevertheless accepted
that the immediacy of the requirement could cause problems for existing
ATFs. It was therefore decided that any ATF not already holding
the L11 or equivalent will be expected to obtain the qualification by
1 January 2009 if he/she wishes to continue training. This gives
4 years’ notice and is based on 10 years from when the ATF Certificate
was first introduced. Those who have a comparable recognised teaching
or coaching qualification such as an Armed Forces Instructional Techniques
Course, or the Certificate in Education will be exempted, but this does
not apply to assessor qualifications such as the D32 or A1 which are different
in nature.
3. Shoemaking Assessment. The old ATF Course did not call for
a standard of shoemaking any better than making a shoe that was safe to
fit to a horse. Council feels that those who are teaching apprentices
to pass the NVQ and the DipWCF need to be able to make shoes to a higher
standard than this, and so introduced the requirement to be able to make
one fire-forged _ fullered straight bar shoe and one fullered concave
hunter shoe in 1 hour 30 minutes. Arguments that farriers holding higher
level qualifications should be exempted were considered, but were countered
by arguments that such qualifications could have been acquired many years
ago and in such cases standards might not have been maintained. Furthermore
there are many farriers who can make shoes to the highest standards but
who do not hold the higher level qualifications. As a result, Council
decided that all ATFs must complete the shoemaking assessment
by 1 January 2009 at the latest. In order to minimise time away
from work and the costs involved, the shoemaking assessments will be run
in the afternoon of the second day of the FRC arranged L11 Courses.
Dates for ATF and L11 courses, and for shoemaking assessments are published
in each issue of the Farriers Bulletin, the next issue of which is due
out shortly.
Although you now have 4 years in which to complete the additional requirements,
Council would urge you to fulfil them as soon as possible. The sooner
you complete the L11, the sooner you will benefit from its teaching, and
not all ATFs will be able to take all the tests in the last few months
of 2008. Do not forget that the L11 Course counts as CPD and under current
arrangements existing ATFs can be refunded half the cost of the course,
whether they take it through the FRC or through a private training provider.
Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) Checks
There was a long discussion at the Council Meeting about whether CRB checks
should be required for all farriers, for ATFs only, or for no farriers.
The Council's legal adviser, Judith Chrystie, was present and gave helpful
advice. In particular, it was made clear that there is no legal requirement
for CRB checks to be made; that only the Disciplinary Committee has the
power to decide, in any individual case, whether a criminal conviction
of any kind should lead to removal of a farrier from the Register; and
that the Council itself has no power to fetter the discretion of the Disciplinary
Committee. The discussion raised a number of supplementary issues on which
further thought was needed. A special meeting of Council to discuss only
CRB issues has therefore been convened for 6:30pm on Wednesday 15 December
2004 at 128 Piccadilly, London. This meeting will be open to members of
the public but if you wish to attend it is essential that you contact
the offices of the FRC beforehand to arrange admission.
The current arrangements for CRB checks for new and existing ATFs
will continue until further notice.
I am sorry that it was not possible to resolve all the outstanding issues
on 11th November but I hope you will understand that this is because Council
is very anxious to ensure that it reaches the right decisions rather than
the fastest ones. If you have any queries about the above requirements,
or want to ask about possible exemptions, please feel free to telephone
the Assistant Registrar, Felicity Heather, and ask for guidance.
Yours sincerely
S M D Williamson-Noble
Registrar
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