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StewartWalters, Business Development Director, MDC Learning Systems, talks about January’s national pdrpro user group, which provided insight on roll out, workforce and watch development planning for both retained and wholetime staff
JANUARY’S PDRPRO USER GROUP brought together leading fire and rescue services from around the UK. The focus was to facilitate learning around implementation of pdrpro in line with Watch Development Planning and the IPDS. This short article aims to provide a reflection on the nine speakers’ key note speeches. The pdrpro system is now used in more than 60 per cent of the UK Fire and Rescue Service. It was designed to meet the needs of the IPDS and the National Learning and Development Strategy adopted by services. The first speaker at this prestigious event was Bob Virtue, Director of Training for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Mr Virtue set the scene by outlining the vision he had several years ago for the Scottish services. The development of pdrpro was a direct result of this vision.
Self Evaluation
The next speaker was Group Commander Alan Fairbairn from Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service who focused on Watch Maintenance Development Planning. Mr Fairbairn explained how they deliver watchbased training against a 36-month plan, based on GRAs, and how this is then recorded in pdrpro. Specific emphasis was placed on ‘core skills’ (such as ladder use), ‘theory based training’, ‘practical elements’ and ‘service specific delivery linked to their IRMP’. Confirmation exercises are then posted on pdrpro so that the individual can evaluate themselves against the risk type, National Occupational Standards, sub roles, equipment and appliance use.
The next speaker was Peter Richardson from Edxecel, who are in the final stages of endorsing pdrpro as one of the only ePorfolios that meets Edexcel’s standards. Mr Richardson provided ample evidence that pdrpro satisfies the need of an ePortfolio for those in development and the maintenance phase. His presentation focused on how an individual can store many diverse items of evidence including video, documents, sound recordings for personal statements, images etc. He commented that the ePortfolio route offered the best way to move forward to manage the assessment process whilst at the same time allowing assessors, IVs and EVs full access to evidence and portfolios. All of these capabilities are possessed by pdrpro. In line with Peter’s presentation Simon Errington from North Yorkshire FRS showed the audience how he has successfully used pdrpro as an ePortfolio for candidates to gain a VQ.
Wildly Successful
The theme shifted to assessing evidence for those in maintenance, an area around which services are debating the process of workplace assessment. Greg Bowns, an ‘internal verifier’, showed how West Midlands FRS has managed this process successfully in pdrpro. West Midlands created a process for station managers to work through a sampling process on a regular basis, using pdrpro to evidence this against the standards. If there were any issues then pdrpro provided full traceability to the evidence. Another concern was the issue of roll-out across a service. Sam Turner from Humberside FRS demonstrated how he managed to roll-out pdrpro in nine months. Richard Hannigan, ACO from Humberside FRS, commented: “I have to say that pdrpro is proving to be successful beyond my wildest expections. User feedback is universally positive.” Humberside FRS had previously tried several products, all of which had now been discarded in favour of pdrpro. Dez Stoddart from Staffordshire FRS showed the audience how Staffordshire has rolled out pdrpro initially to station managers and above. He focused on their strategy to get buy-in from senior levels first before full-scale roll out to all staff. Duncan Ashworth from Norfolk FRS spoke with an emphasis on retained personnel. He explained the benefits of pdrpro within this target group, showing how they had set up wholetime and RDS stations. Within 12 months all staff are now using pdrpro.
Performance Indicators
Finally, Fiona Mackay, from Kent FRS, demonstrated how Kent had developed an area within pdrpro that allows them, as a service, to create criteria to measure skill and K&U for equipment, appliances and procedures. This gave an insight into performance out-with the National Occupational Standards and shows how Kent have enabled staff to record competencies against core skills areas which many services run as a phase two programme.
Uniquely, pdrpro gives ownership of the PDR to the individual. The line manager simply posts an event, be it live or simulated. In this way, real-time information and reporting demonstrate everything the individual and team have covered. Lack of this feature is a major flaw with other, older, software systems which may have been initially linked to resource management and since configured to manage training records.
To summarise, pdrpro is a PDR system for wholetime and retained personnel, whether in maintenance or development. Martin Taylor, commented: “I thought South Yorkshire made a good point about other systems not being owned by the individual and not being able to satisfy this need to know for sure, if an individual was, in fact, competent. I feel pdrpro is an invaluable tool for services to meet this need, one which is becoming increasingly greater in services in our current climate.”www.pdrpro.co.uk www.mdconline.co.uk |
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