Proud ambitions
At the AGM, LEEA CEO Dr Ross Moloney presented some of a multitude of highlights from the past year of which LEEA is proud and previews developments to look forward to in 2026.
A key way for LEEA to achieve our aspiration of eliminating accident, injury and fatality in our sector is to bring more people into our network – but not to reduce the threshold of entry. Membership growth has also come with an increase in the rejection of applications and a willingness to say no to people wishing to join us but who do not, however, meet our requirements. So we will maintain the balance between being a dynamic association with a deliberately high threshold for membership. And now we have our new membership assessment portal to streamline the process for people to express interest in joining LEEA.
We are now assessing whether people are competent rather than simply assessing if they have a good memory. We are actively engaged in vocational education, which means we want to teach and test people to see that they can do a job. We are excited about the opportunities that digital learning and licensed training bring to test competency.
A significant training organisation
High numbers have been accessing our learning this year. Our investment in a learning platform during the COVID years means we are far ahead of any other trade association. We can deliver our learning and training virtually from our HQ in the UK, in whatever time zone you are in. We’ve been able to deliver training to similarly high numbers of people in person – when they come to our HQ in Huntingdon or where we send our staff out to teach people in their own premises. We are a significant training organisation.
Our training has value, not just because it’s competitively priced, but because it’s effectively written by our members. We are a demand-led training firm because we listen to members working on the front line, we understand the skills and competencies staff need to be good at their job as well as being productive and adding value to their business.
It’s not easy to pass LEEA qualifications and we are proud of that because we are not simply an attendance culture organisation. We will never reduce the amount, or the quality, of what our students and members’ employees learn when they come to LEEA. You can trust us with your students, our qualifications are valid and legitimate, and we are working to devise additional services to help our students learn and progress.
The LEEA Board is committed to ensuring that people who use lifting equipment are just as safe as our current membership who manufacture, inspect, design and examine lifting equipment. Through the great work of engineers, standards writers and members, equipment rarely fails. We know that the majority of accidents happen when people make bad mistakes. So we will look at how we can support users in our marketplace.
LEEA is here to serve our members but, in addition to member benefit and value, we also have a responsibility to the wider industry.
If you are looking to come out of the military and transition into the civilian workforce, LEEA gives you free training, a free foundation and a free diploma, so the military leaver can get a TEAM card and become instantly employable. We’ve done that with 82 people so far – which for them is a life-changing, free intervention from our association.
In England, we've had almost 80 apprenticeship starts. It’s still early days for the scheme, which was developed by members of the LEEA Board, and we're looking to develop similar pathways globally.
Looking ahead
We must always look forwards and there will be new developments in 2026. We will be ensuring that students become better at passing exams. Given that we must never make our exams easier, we are going to have trainers that support the cohort that didn’t pass first time so they do so next time. There is no additional cost: investment in these students is part of the LEEA of service.
The ATS (Accredited Training Scheme) is going to be reformed in 2026. There is clearly an appetite for LEEA being a third party validator of training to the end user market.
In January 2026, we will roll out licensing LEEA core training for inspection and examination so that it can be accessed in the trainee’s own country. We will license highly skilled, competent and well regarded training providers to provide LEEA training in the student’s local language, incorporating local standards and news stories. It will be LEEA core training at a relevant and local price – and a reduced waiting time. This represents a fundamental shift in terms of LEEA delivering training globally.
For competency assessment, we are moving away from knowledge retention because the ease with which we can all find answers on Google and Chat GPT, means memory is less important than being able to apply knowledge.
Improved access to vital information
Members can now access and download global standards as part of their LEEA subscription. This adds value by saving members the quite significant cost of buying these standards themselves, outside of LEEA membership. In fact, we believe that in the first year of this service, our members have saved collectively over half a million pounds.
The COPSULE (Code of Practice for the Safe Use of Lifting Equipment) continues to be LEEA’s single largest downloaded document. It has been improved with better diagrams and the inclusion of videos. The same high quality content has been re-edited to further improve its accessibility.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting on workplaces and the skills that members are recruiting for. But it’s a double-edged sword. AI engines, such as ChatGPT, are an easy way to conduct rapid and rough research, but it also risks finding information that is at best problematic. With the new Searchbot, LEEA has created what is effectively a ring-fenced piece of AI. It provides only LEEA-approved guidance that has been written and signed off by LEEA members. We make the argument to the world that our members know more about lifting equipment than any other organisation globally. As such, our guidance, training and representations to government truly represent the expertise in our industry.
More networking
LiftEx held in Liverpool in November was attended by members from around the world. Over 80 brands exhibited, and we had 1,500 delegates attending. That’s the largest ever by almost 30%. We also had 450 people at the LEEA Awards. Over 100 members from across the world applied for these prestigious and weighty awards.
There will be more networking opportunities in 2026. We are an association that is committed to bringing our membership together in the same room as well as using digital solutions.
We are committed to making it easier to make a simple financial decision to join our association by enhancing and increasing the benefit that we bring. We will continually strive to be better at listening to our members so that we can be better at serving you in the future.
I am proud to lead an association that sees itself as a partner rather than a source of another tax. You do not have to be a member of LEEA so we need to win your trust, your participation and your membership on a daily basis.
We are an association that must advocate on behalf of our members who compete on quality and on innovation. We recognise the expertise that goes into your products and services, and we will be your partner and your advocate in winning the argument of safety, excellence and raising standards.
LEEA’s Annual General Meeting Report 2025 can be download at leeaint.com. Please log in with you LEEA ID and Password and download from the dashboard.
