September update on the Water Industry Review

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Welcome to the September update on the Water Industry Review

September has been another very busy month for the Water review, with progress being made on all facets but especially the Level 3 programmes.

In this update:

Water Treatment qualifications
The Water Treatment suite of qualifications have been with NZQA for minor revisions and ownership changes, and the response from the evaluator arrived on Friday 30th September. They are requesting only minor tweaks to administrative sections and have not requested any changes to the important content. These have been returned to NZQA for final approval, which we expect to be granted this month.

Drinking-Water Assessors Working Group meetings - 9 September and 30 September
Group members: Martyn Simpson, Scott Rostron, Sarah Pitches, Nick Hewer-Hewitt
The group met twice in September, and went over all of the unit standards associated with the Diploma in Drinking-Water Assessment. These standards are now being updated and checked by the group for consistency with meeting agreements. Once this work is completed, the draft programme and standards will be sent to wider industry for consultation, and placed on the Connexis website for public viewing and feedback.

Water Reticulation Working Group meeting - 21 September
Group members: Alan Smith, Keith Barnett, Duncan Smith, Ross Twyman, Nigel Hesford, Greg Winnie, Todd Randell, Garry Adcock
The group met for the first time and reviewed the standards listed as Priority. This group included standards in confined space entry, lifting operations, location of services, notifiable works, as-built plans, CCTV survey of assets, and shut down and recommissioning of pipelines. These standards have been updated and are with the group for confirmation before being sent to wider industry for feedback. It is likely that the Reticulation group will have to meet at least twice more to cover the remaining 36 standards for review.

Drinking-Water Treatment Working Group meeting - 23 September
Group members: Jason Colton, Martyn Simpson, Stuart Urquhart, Dave Bassett, Andrew van Bussel
This was the second meeting of the Water Treatment group, this time covering the standards at Levels 4 and 5 not focused on specific work processes (legislation, monitoring and testing, site walkthrough, treatment plant report etc) and those shared with other sectors to ensure they are still fit for use in water treatment. These standards are now being updated and checked for consistency with meeting outcomes. Once this work is completed, the draft programmes and standards will be sent to wider industry for consultation, and placed on the Connexis website for public viewing and feedback.

Wastewater Working Group meeting - 28 September
Group members: Ian Cripps, Adrian Webb, Nigel Hesford
This was the second meeting of the Water Treatment group, this time covering the standards at Levels 4 and 5 not focused on work processes (legislation, monitoring and testing, site walkthrough, treatment plant report etc) and those shared with other sectors to ensure they are still fit for use in wastewater treatment. These standards are now being updated and checked by the group for consistency with meeting agreements. Once this work is completed, the draft programmes and standards will be sent to wider industry for consultation, and placed on the Connexis website for public viewing and feedback.

Programme Development progress:

The review of unit standards and programmes for the following qualifications has now been completed:

  • NZ Certificate in Water Treatment (Drinking-Water/Wastewater) (Level 3)
  • NZ Certificate in Water Treatment (Small Scale Systems) (Level 3)

The final drafts of these have been sent to a large industry consultation group, and are also available on the Connexis website for viewing.

Please take the time to check these over, as they will only be as good as the information and feedback provided by industry experts.

Specific feedback we are looking for:

  1. Do the draft programmes meet the outcomes of the qualifications and are they achievable within your industry?
  2. Does the content of the draft unit standards collectively cover the skills and knowledge required for the tasks they represent, and are they achievable within your industry?

Please send any feedback to Wendy Allison.

Feedback will be open until 20 October 2016.

Coming up next

October/November

  • Update programmes based on any changes to standards and circulate drafts for feedback.
  • Finalise draft unit standards and circulate for feedback.
  • Submit Water Treatment unit standards to NZQA for registration end of October.

November/December

  • Two meetings of Water Reticulation industry groups to review standards
  • Complete consultation on Water Reticulation standards with wider industry groups and submit to NZQA
  • Complete consultation and signoff for programmes, submit to NZQA

If you wish to be part of the consultation for the unit standards and/or programmes, or would like further information on the review and development process, please email Wendy Allison who is managing this project.

Similarly, please feel free to share this information with others in your organisation who may find it useful.

Kind regards,
The Qualifications Team

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