18 OCT 2019 BY MEGAN KELLY
Some 2,500 Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) tests are to be reviewed after arrests for alleged fraud offences at the sites.
Three men involved in running CITB health, safety and environment tests were arrested for fraud offences after it was found that they were giving answers to candidates in exchange for money.
The CITB will now review more than 2,500 tests conducted at three health, safety and environment test centres in the past year and then decide whether or not to revoke the certificates.
Seven construction workers were also detained on suspicion of working illegally in Britain, following the unannounced counter-fraud visits, which were carried out alongside the police and Home Office.
Candidates admitted paying up to 25 times more than the test was meant to cost them at test centres in Cheshire, Essex and London, spending up to £500 to take the HS&E test worth £21.
The centres are run by private companies and audited by the CITB.
At the Cheshire site, a staff member admitted helping candidates choose the correct answers, a CITB statement said. It added that a “considerable amount of cash” was also found “without a plausible explanation”.
A candidate at the centre was detained and bailed on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
Staff members at the Essex centre admitted to administrators being paid to give correct answers during the test.
At the London centre, the Metropolitan Police arrested a man over facilitating corrupt tests for other candidates. He has since been released under investigation pending further enquiries.
Fake documentation and card making equipment was seized from a number of test centres.
CITB fraud manager Ian Sidney said that the body has “considerable experience in auditing test centres all over the country” and is working with the Home Office and law enforcement to ensure a “safe working environment”.
So far in 2019, CITB has shut down 17 test centres involved in delivery of fraudulent tests or qualifications, its statement said.
The training board has called for anyone with information about fraudulent testing in construction tocontact the organisation.
In September, after CN reported on fake CSCS cards being issued to victims of modern slavery, CITB chief executive Sarah Beale told CN that the issue of CSCS card fraud is not a widespread one.
She said: “There are very, very [few] instances and a small number of centres [in the] last several years that have committed fraud.”