What is ISHCCO?
ISHCCO defines itself on its own website as a non-profit association of national associations of health and safety coordinators in construction from European countries. It is therefore not an association of individual coordinators, but a second-level organization: its members are the national professional associations of each country, not individual construction coordinators.
It was founded in 2003. The country of registration of the organization and its exact legal form beyond the non-profit status declared on its own website are not available from verified sources, so this information is not included in this record.
Their activity is expressly framed within Council Directive 92/57/EEC of 24 June 1992, on the minimum health and safety requirements to be applied to temporary or mobile construction sites. This directive, the eighth specific directive within the general framework of Directive 89/391/EEC, is the one that introduced the figure of the health and safety coordinator into European Union law.
Purpose and scope of action
ISHCCO’s stated purpose is to support European safety and health coordinators by facilitating their professional development, recognition of their training, and technical advancement of the discipline, acting through its national member associations.
Its scope is strictly European. Among the national associations represented on its board of directors are entities from Germany, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, and Switzerland, which gives an idea of the network’s geographical reach, although this does not allow for a definitive or complete list of member countries.
Functions and main lines of work
ISHCCO’s activity is concentrated on two fronts.
- Qualification framework. Since 2003, it has been developing the ISHCCO Qualification Framework, a catalog of criteria for knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a health and safety coordinator, graduated according to the complexity of the project, from simple works to large civil engineering projects.
- International conferences. It organizes international meetings that bring together national member associations to share technical and training criteria.
The ISHCCO Qualification Framework is based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the common eight-level scale that allows for the comparison of qualifications across European Union countries, regardless of whether they were acquired through formal, non-formal, or informal means. The stated objective is to ensure that a coordinator’s qualification, recognized in one European country, is understandable and valuable in another.
Contribution to safety and health at work
The role of the health and safety coordinator originates from Directive 92/57/EEC, which requires their appointment when several companies are involved in a construction project, to coordinate the application of prevention principles both during the design and construction phases. In Spain, this directive was transposed by Royal Decree 1627/1997 of October 24, which defines the health and safety coordinator during the design phase and the coordinator during construction, and regulates their functions, including the approval of the health and safety plan and coordination among the companies working at the site.
ISHCCO’s contribution to occupational safety and health (OSH) is not regulatory: the organization cannot modify the European directive or the national transpositions of each country, and its qualification framework does not replace the legal requirements for qualifications or certification that each Member State requires to act as a coordinator. Its value lies in offering a common catalog of competencies that facilitates comparing the training of a coordinator from one European country with that of another, in the construction sector, where the mobility of companies and professionals between countries is commonplace.
Programs, resources or methodologies
The ISHCCO Qualification Framework is the organization’s core resource. It defines differentiated levels of competence according to the scope and technical complexity of the construction project, from small-scale works to large-scale civil engineering projects, and is based on a comparison between existing professional criteria in different European countries and the standards of the European Qualifications Framework.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
ISHCCO joins the institutional advisory committee of the ORP International Foundation with a very specific objective: the coordination of health and safety in construction projects, through the European national associations it represents and the qualification framework it has been developing since 2003 for this professional role. Its presence on the committee does not extend this objective to other sectors of activity.
Practical application
For a health and safety coordinator, or for the company that appoints them, the ISHCCO qualification framework offers a useful point of comparison when the work has an international component, for example when the construction company, the developer or the subcontractors come from different European countries.
It is important not to confuse the ISHCCO qualification framework with a legal requirement: in each country, the enabling requirement to act as a safety and health coordinator is that set by its own regulations transposing Directive 92/57/EEC, not the ISHCCO catalog of competencies, which has the character of a professional reference and not a legal requirement.
