The launch of Cogent, a sector skills council for the oil and gas extraction, chemicals manufacturing and petroleum industries, has been branded unhelpful to the forecourt industry.

At the official launch of Cogent last month, a number of delegates told Forecourt Trader that the skills council did not go far enough to be of use to retailers.

One source said: “What we would like is a standard syllabus for competent

person training. There are about 10-15 different training companies that all do the course slightly differently. It would be nice for retailers to see that they are putting staff on a Cogent-approved course.”