RS11: Training in Coal Mines

Cover image for a guide to Recognised Standard 11 and training in coal mines

Recognised Standard 11 covers training in coal mines. It applies to surface and underground operations alike, on the basis that while the training materials differ, the system and process requirements do not. It runs from induction through to how you prove, years later, that a person was competent when it mattered.

This guide covers what RS11 requires across induction, training needs, assessment and refresher training, and spends most of its time on record keeping, because that is the part sites underestimate and the part auditors go to first.

Induction, and what it is not

Induction establishes the baseline: the hazards of this site, the safety and health management system, the emergency arrangements, and how work is authorised here. It is a starting point and not a competency.

The failure that follows from treating induction as sufficient is familiar. A contractor is inducted, receives a card, and is then treated as authorised for work that induction never covered. Induction says a person knows how the site works. It does not say they can isolate a conveyor.

Establishing training needs by role

RS11 works through training needs and pathways by category rather than issuing one list, which is the right structure because the categories are genuinely different problems.

  • Site safety and health management system. What everyone needs to know about the system they work under.
  • Senior and statutory positions. Where prescribed competencies exist, and where they run out.
  • Trade competencies. Recognised trade qualifications and what the site adds to them.
  • Equipment operator competencies. Machine specific, and the largest volume of assessment on most sites.
  • Emergency escape and response competencies. Including the people who will be relied on and may not know it yet.
  • Site safety and health representative competencies. A statutory role with its own requirements.
  • Other competencies. The residual category that carries most of the interesting cases.

That last category is where RS11 meets RS22 management structure. RS22 requires the site senior executive to determine what competencies a delegated position needs, including where the legislation prescribes none. RS11 is the machinery for delivering, assessing and recording whatever RS22 determines. Sites that treat them as two unrelated obligations end up with a competency matrix that does not match the management structure, and two documents that disagree are worse than one that is incomplete.

Assessment, RPL and the trap in recognition

RS11 covers the training and assessment process, including recognition of prior learning and recognition of current competency, and requires trainers and assessors to be appropriately qualified.

Recognition of prior learning is legitimate and necessary in an industry where people move between sites carrying real skill. The trap is that RPL is often applied to the qualification rather than to the site. A person who has operated that machine for fifteen years elsewhere has the operating competency. They do not have knowledge of this pit, this traffic plan, these ground conditions or this trigger action response plan, and none of that is recognised prior learning.

The practical answer is to be explicit about which part of a competency is portable and which part is site specific, and to record them separately so the site specific half cannot be signed off by reference to a previous employer.

Refresher training

The site senior executive is responsible for ensuring refresher training occurs. The regulation requires that each coal mine worker at the mine, including each worker holding a senior management or supervisory position and each worker holding a certificate of competency, is given refresher training under the mine training scheme at least once in every five years.

Two points are worth drawing out. First, the obligation explicitly reaches senior management and certificate holders. Refresher schedules that quietly cover operators and exempt the people running the operation are a common and visible gap.

Second, RS11 is sensible about the form. Refresher training does not necessarily require full training and assessment against the full unit of competency, and may be partially achieved by recorded observations against the standards during routine work. That is a considerable relief operationally, and it comes with a condition: the observations have to be recorded. An observation nobody wrote down did not happen, and five years is exactly long enough for everyone involved to have forgotten.

Record keeping, which is the real obligation

RS11 asks for detailed and accurate records of all training, assessments and appointments, with recording procedures that are auditable and provide for a specific list of things. The list is worth reading closely because most systems fail at least two of them.

  • Sufficient and reliable evidence of competencies and qualifications.
  • Worker access to their own records, during and after employment.
  • Transfer between operations. With the person’s permission, the SSE makes a copy of their training records available to another operation.
  • A full copy on departure. A coal mine worker leaving an operation is to be given a full copy of the competencies, tickets and authorisations achieved while employed there, and those documents are placed on the record at subsequent operations to give a ready cross reference to previous experience.
  • Confidentiality of personal training records in accordance with the relevant legislation.
  • Retention after employment ends.
  • Easy determination of the currency of competencies, including refresher dates.

That final item is the one that quietly defeats most training matrices. A spreadsheet can tell you a person attained a competency. Telling you at a glance which competencies across a workforce of six hundred are expiring within ninety days is a different capability, and it is the one the standard actually asks for.

RS11 also suggests trainees be given a means of recording their own training, such as a training log, and that completed logs can form part of the assessment evidence.

Where sites come unstuck

  • Attainment is tracked, currency is not. The matrix records what was achieved and cannot answer what is expiring.
  • Contractors sit outside the system. Site employees are managed properly and contractor competency is a certificate someone emailed once. The obligations do not distinguish that way, as covered in contractor management under one system.
  • Refresher is exempted upwards. Operators are refreshed, supervisors and managers are not, and the regulation explicitly includes them.
  • Observation based refresher is used without records. The flexibility is taken and the evidence is not created, which is worse than not using it.
  • Records do not survive the worker. Someone leaves, the file is archived or deleted, and the retention and access obligations are quietly breached.
  • Training is disconnected from the risks. The matrix reflects what the training provider offers rather than what the site’s hazard profile requires.

Making currency visible

Almost every RS11 record keeping requirement is a query rather than a document. Who is current. What expires this quarter. Which competencies does this position require and does the person acting in it today hold them. What did this person achieve while they were here.

HazView contributes to the operational half of that. Controls and inspections are assigned against positions and people, so the record shows who was responsible and who actually did the work, with time and location attached and kept permanently. Observation based refresher evidence can be captured in the field as it happens, against the person and the task, rather than reconstructed later. Overdue and expiring items surface rather than waiting to be discovered.

It is worth being straight about the boundary. HazView is not a learning management system and does not deliver or assess training. Most sites already run an LMS or an HR system that holds the qualification data properly, and that is the right place for it. What the REST API does is stop those two worlds from being maintained by hand: competency and currency data can be fed in so field records know who is authorised, and HazView’s operational evidence can be pushed back out. Populating a second system by retyping is where training records go stale, and it is entirely avoidable.

See how HazView works for managers, or book a demo.

Frequently asked questions

How often is refresher training required in Queensland coal mines?

At least once in every five years for each coal mine worker, including workers holding a senior management or supervisory position and workers holding a certificate of competency. The site senior executive is responsible for ensuring it happens.

Does refresher training mean redoing the full unit of competency?

Not necessarily. RS11 allows refresher to be partially achieved through recorded observations against the standards while conducting routine work. The condition is that the observations are actually recorded.

Does RS11 apply to open cut mines?

Yes. It applies to both surface and underground operations. The training and assessment materials differ between them, the system and process requirements do not.

What happens to training records when a worker leaves?

The worker is to be given a full copy of the competencies, tickets and authorisations achieved while employed at that operation, and those documents go on the record at subsequent operations as a cross reference to previous experience. The original site also retains records after employment ends and must allow the person access to them.

Can training records be transferred between mines?

Yes, with the person’s permission. The site senior executive may make a copy of a person’s training records available to another operation where the person concerned has consented to the transfer.

How does RS11 relate to RS22?

RS22 determines what competency a delegated position requires. RS11 is how that competency is delivered, assessed, refreshed and recorded. They should describe the same set of positions, and when they do not, one of them is out of date.