No one has actually ever asked to actually see any of my qualifications, apart from NAPIT in the fifty years since I went and got my National Insurance number when I was fifteen. 

For many years I worked on sites where new guys started work at eight o'clock and the site agent or foreman walked around at ten o'clock to decide if they stayed or went. 

Two hours was enough time to complete enough work for the assessment. 

Mind you some did not make it to ten o'clock,  like the bricklayers who hadn't laid a brick by ten past eight and the forklift driver who bent the boom on the brand new forklift before twenty past eight, he left over the back fence without speaking to anyone, I was stood watching him with a plumber, we both could see he was incompetent and guessed what was going to happen,  unfortunately the management were not so astute. 

No one has actually ever asked to actually see any of my qualifications, apart from NAPIT in the fifty years since I went and got my National Insurance number when I was fifteen. 

For many years I worked on sites where new guys started work at eight o'clock and the site agent or foreman walked around at ten o'clock to decide if they stayed or went. 

Two hours was enough time to complete enough work for the assessment. 

Mind you some did not make it to ten o'clock,  like the bricklayers who hadn't laid a brick by ten past eight and the forklift driver who bent the boom on the brand new forklift before twenty past eight, he left over the back fence without speaking to anyone, I was stood watching him with a plumber, we both could see he was incompetent and guessed what was going to happen,  unfortunately the management were not so astute. 

Sparkingchip said:

No one has actually ever asked to actually see any of my qualifications, apart from NAPIT

Many years ago, on a Friday afternoon, I received a telephone call which told me that one of the workforce may not have had an important qualification which he had claimed. I spoke to him, put the allegation to him, and told him that provided that he brought his certificate in on Monday morning, all would be in order. I never saw him again.

The next step was to speak to the next in line with a view to what one might call a "field promotion". I asked him to bring in his certificate. When he asked whether he should remove it from the frame, I knew that we were safe.

What is really worrying is that this was not the only such case in the department and I can only conclude that over the years plenty of people got away with it.

ha - I like the idea of the 2 hour evaluation grace period, we could do something like that  where I work  I reckon instead of interviews - and joking aside I suspect under a keen eye, rather like the very quick good or bad feel of an informal EICR,  I imagine it works rather well. It does not however provide a complete backside protection trail back to head office that is the sort of thing insurance like.

That said I cannot remember when I last had to  produce  any of the several  bits of paper I possess to show that I did know something long ago. I suspect almost never.

The exceptions have been the drivers licence and the passport, and oddly enough the ham radio licence.

Mike.