It has now been two years since the launch of ITIL (R) Version 3, the new version of best practice guidance for service management from the OGC (Office of Government Commerce). For these past two years, the administrators of the new qualifications scheme (APMG), together with examination institutes and training providers, have been busy getting the new ITIL Expert qualification off the ground.

However, perhaps this new qualification scheme could – before it has really got going properly – already be due for a review according to the most recent figures for ITIL training. They show a high number of candidates taking version 3 foundation level training, but a very low take-up for the subsequent capabilities and lifecycle training courses.

The large number of courses now required to be completed and corresponding examinations to be passed in order to obtain the expert qualification may, to a large extent, be responsible for the low demand at the intermediate level. The older V2 Service Sanager certificate could be completed, start to finish, in only 13 days whereas the new ITIL Expert qualification would now take up to 27 days to finish.

The version 3 scheme has 3 levels and an additional 4th level is planned. Is all this training really what people actually want and need or could it be just another money-spinner for the scheme administrators and the training providers? The answer from the market seems to be that the new courses are not wanted -at least for the present.

In addition, whilst the V2 Service Manager certificate is live, it remains a much more attractive route to the new top-level V3 qualification for many people since it only requires eighteen days to complete from scratch; and just fifteen if you already hold a V2 Foundation certificate. This boils down to less days out of the office, lower cost and fewer exams to pass.

So APMG really need to get their thinking-caps on to determine what can be done to rectify the situation. One thing that really needs to be considered soon is the shutting-down of the version 2 scheme. Thats what needs to happen as a matter of some urgency if the new scheme is to be taken more seriously by delegates and training providers alike.