Anyone digging trenches, laying drainage or working near buried electricity, gas, water, sewer or fibre services.
A cubic metre of soil weighs over a tonne, and people are killed in excavations under 1.5 metres deep. Collapse and striking a buried service are the two main risks.
The pack covers preventing collapse with battering, benching, shoring or a trench box installed as the dig progresses rather than afterwards, identifying buried services with plans, a cable avoidance tool and safe digging practice together, inspection by a competent person at the start of every shift and after rain, and safe access, egress, spoil and barrier placement.
One hazard, done completely, for the whole firm.
The pack also has a theory test answer key. It is supplied separately to the employer, not published in the pack itself, so the test stays a genuine assessment when your own supervisor marks it.
Not required to be compliant, but available where a customer, principal contractor or insurer wants third-party evidence.
You assess your own people in-house using the pack, and send PHW the completed records. PHW checks the records and, where they hold up, issues a certificate carrying a QR code that resolves to a live verification page. The certificate states plainly that the assessment was carried out in-house and verified by PHW. It is not a record of PHW having carried out the assessment itself, and records that are too thin are rejected rather than certified.