IIAI Exec Committee Chair – Hands On in Saudi Arabia

Posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2025

In May 2025, Alan Dell travelled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to commence assessments of the quality of IIAI Approved Course deliveries there.

A Post by Alan Dell MBE, IIAI Executive Committee Chairman

In October 2024, I was advised that Neucom Ltd had been granted clearance to deliver another round of IIAI Approved Accident Investigation training courses in the Middle East; specifically, on this occasion, Tabuk, Taif, Al Majma’ah and Dhahran, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The courses would be delivered in May and October 2025, and, as Neucom would soon be due for Executive Review (undertaken on a strict schedule when the delivery language of an IIAI Approved Course is not the first language of the attendees), I was asked if I would be available to commence those reviews on the Tabuk and Taif courses in May. As my schedule had never allowed me to do this in the past, I was pleased to eventually find myself heading to course one in Tabuk, via London and Jeddah.

(Pic 1. Alan Dell delivering a short section of the IIAI Lead Accident Investigators’ Certificate course in Tabuk).

In the weeks before departure, I had to refresh the main course being delivered, which was the IIAI Lead Accident Investigators’ Certificate (LAIC). The LAIC is a three-day classroom taught course, and, as ‘a’ pre-requisite for it is the IIAI Foundation Certificate in Industrial Accident Investigation and Analysis course, I refreshed that online prior to refreshing the LAIC. I say ‘a’ pre-requisite, because delegates from outside the UK must also undertake an Additional Short Exercise once the Foundation has been completed, so I also refreshed myself on the requirements of that part as well.

Amongst many other things, a person assessing and monitoring the delivery quality of IIAI Intermediate level courses (e.g. LAIC) and/or IIAI Higher Certificate Units (e.g. ‘IIAI Advanced/Investigative Interviewing Skills’) is looking for evidence that the Instructor is fully conversant with the specific topics and subjects covered by the course in question, and their equivalents in any lower level course. Beyond this, there must also be evidence that the Instructor can make timely, knowledgeable, and appropriate links and references to higher level IIAI materials, without overwhelming. In addition, an assessor must take an active delivery role in a part of the course so that assessment can be made of the Instructor’s (here, Paul Difford, Neucom’s Principal Investigator and Senior Instructor) ability to produce lesson plans for others. Paul selected a short 20 minute part from the section on ‘Witnesses and Interviewing’ for me (see pic 1. above, myself delivering at Tabuk, and pic.3. below, myself at Taif), and it is on part of that section that I now wish to focus.

More to follow shortly

(Pic 3. Alan Dell delivering a short section of the IIAI Lead Accident Investigators’ Certificate course in Taif).

More to follow