What is the NRSWA (Streetworks) Course

What is NRSWA?

The NRSWA is the (New Roads and Street Works Act 1991) exists to ensure safety and correct practice when carrying out any work on roads, highways and footpaths. It is there to minimise risk to both workers and the public. It is an act of legislation (a law or set of laws passed by Parliament). The qualifications required for operatives to undertake streetworks was updated in 2016. In the NRSW Act itself, there are lots of practical guidance given for the efficient co-ordination, ensuring safety and minimising disruption and inconvenience to the general public using the road or pavement.

The process of applying for work to be undertaken, to reaching an agreement on the proposal being made follows four steps:
1. Information – the street authority (e.g. Highways England) will look at all the information given on what work is being proposed and when it is suggested to happen.
2. Analysis – the street authority will taken time to analyse the information and fully understand it e.g. they might undertake a sight visit or record data of how often the road is being used each day.
3. Consideration – they will inspect the plans for what will be put into place to minimise disruption before it agrees to the proposals e.g. has consideration been made for wheelchair users if the path is being dug up or if it is a busy road, does your proposal suggest a complete closure or partial closure and at what time?
4. Cooperation – all parties that are involved in the work are expected to cooperate with the street authority to achieve the minimum disruption to the general public traffic that will be affected.

So where does the ‘Streetworks’ come into it?

NRSWA training is commonly referred to as ‘Streetworks’ or ‘Streetworks Training’. This can be confusing when booking your course, so make sure you know what courses you need before confirming your bookings. If you are unsure, please give our team a call on 0800 0213 263.

Upon completion of your course, you will gain an NRSWA card. This is needed to prove that you have completed the course and are ready to carry out work. An NRSWA Card is also commonly known as a ‘Streetworks ticket’ or pass.

What NRSWA Streetworks units do I need?

If you are new to a streetworks workforce, here is what you need to know:

There are 9 certificates available for operatives. Two of these are Key Certificates, which means you MUST have them to work on a site. The rest are non-key units and should be used to tailor your qualifications to the work you do. However, we recommend that you complete LA and O1-05 & O9 to be covered for the majority of work that might be undertaken on site.

The operative qualifications are identified by an ‘O’ code:

What if I am only responsible for signing, lighting and guarding?

Although the O1 is a key certificate, as you might have guessed, signing, lighting and guarding is not itself a street works activity. Therefore, you do not need a street works card to set up signing lighting and guarding for a street works site. However, you must be able to show you are training to comply with the ‘Safety at Street W and Road Works Code and Practice’. Holding the O1 certificate is a way of showing that you have been appropriately trained. The same with the ‘Location and Avoidance’, it is not technically a street works activity. You can now obtain a street works card with just an ‘LA’ qualification on it, which we call our ‘Cat and Jenny Training’.

What qualifications do I need as a Supervisor?

If you are supervising, then you need to hold the supervisor qualifications, these are identified by a ‘S’ code:

A supervisor may have a number of street work sites to manage, so may not be on one site all of the time.

You can be qualified as an operative, or supervisor, or both. Having the supervisor certificates does not automatically qualify you to do an operatives job, so if you are going to working as an operative and a supervisor, you will need as the bare minimum the certificate codes LA, 01 and S1.

How long do my Streetworks certificates last for?

You will need to renew your key certificates every 5 years, along with any other certificates that are still relevant to the type of streetworks you are working on. Each certificate will have it’s own expiry date, therefore you can add different ones whenever you want and they will last individually for 5 years. You can renew and take your refresher course before the expiry date, you do not need to wait until it runs out.

How do I get my Streetworks certificates?

Project Skills Solutions offer NRSWA/Streetworks qualifications with the following awarding bodies: SQA, CABWI, City & Guilds, NOCN, LNATRA and SWQR.

Our NRSWA Streetworks Operative qualification covers your key certificates LA and O1 as well as O2 to 05 and O8. If you need to be certified for hot-lay bituminous materials (O6) please contact us. We do offer courses with this certificate, our team will be able to find the best qualification and venue options for you. In addition, we offer the NRSWA Streetworks Reassessment.

Our NRSWA Streetworks Supervisor qualification overs your key certificates LA and S1 as well as S2 to S5 and S7.

Being qualified for all the main works that a site may carry out and avoids the delay of having to take a course for a specific course number before you can start work. However, Project Skills Solutions also provides O1 (signing, lighting and guarding) and S1 (Monitoring signing, lighting and guarding) as individual units as a 1 day course if this suits your only responsibility on site.

Book an NRSWA

We currently have over 30 locations in the UK that you can complete your NRSWA/Streetworks certificates, you can visit the course page here. If you are interested in booking with us, call a member of our team on 0800 0213 263 chat to us online, or email to book your course now.