"Competent person" is not a qualification

The words “competent person” appear in regulation after regulation. Thorough examinations, inspections, written schemes, risk assessments, fire, asbestos, confined spaces, building work. Organisations treat the phrase as if it described a category of person who exists in the world and can be hired. It describes a judgement, and the judgement belongs to whoever is appointing.

What the law asks

The regimes word it differently and arrive at the same place. The CDM Regulations 2015 are the clearest worked example. Regulation 8 requires that a designer or contractor appointed to a project has “the skills, knowledge and experience, and, if they are an organisation, the organisational capability, necessary to fulfil the role that they are appointed to undertake”. Then comes the sentence organisations skip: anyone appointing a designer or contractor must “take reasonable steps to satisfy themselves” that this is so.

Two things follow, and they hold across the other regimes.

It is task-specific. Competent to carry out a thorough examination of an overhead travelling crane is not the same as competent to examine a passenger lift. Neither makes somebody competent to write the examination scheme. The question is never “is this person competent”. It is “is this person competent for this, on this equipment, in this environment”.

The appointer carries a duty. You cannot discharge your obligation by pointing at somebody else’s certificate. You have to have taken reasonable steps to satisfy yourself. If you have taken none, that is your finding, not theirs.

What it is not

A card. Cards and registration schemes are useful evidence. They are not the test. A few come close to determinative in their own domain, gas work being the obvious case, where registration is itself a legal requirement. For most duties a card is one input among several.

A job title. “Our maintenance engineer does it” is not an answer to the competence question. Neither is a consultant’s letterhead.

Permanent. Competence dates. Somebody competent on a technology five years ago, or under a standard since revised, may not be competent now. This is the version that catches good organisations. The arrangement was sound when it was made and nobody went back to it.

Transferable across regimes. A fire risk assessor who is expert on their own subject is not thereby competent to assess a DSEAR zone. The consultant who assesses DSEAR zones is not thereby competent to survey for asbestos.

How to satisfy yourself

Not by collecting certificates, though collect them. By answering three questions about each appointment, in writing, before the work starts.

1. What exactly are they being appointed to do? Written narrowly. Half the competence failures we see are scope failures in a competence costume. The person was competent for what they were asked to do, and was asked to do the wrong thing.
2. What evidence do we hold that they can do it, for this equipment, this process, this site? Qualifications, memberships, insurance, and above all comparable work described specifically enough to check.
3. Who reviewed that evidence, and when is it reviewed again?

Three questions and a date. Twenty minutes per appointment, and it is the difference between a defensible arrangement and an assumption that has been running for six years.

Why it matters more than it sounds

Competence is the load-bearing word in the compliance system. Statutory examinations, inspections, assessments, written schemes and risk assessments are nearly all discharged through a competent person. So every one of those duties rests on a judgement the organisation made, often years ago, often informally, often by whoever answered the phone.

When something goes wrong, that judgement gets examined. Better to write it down while it is still a routine decision.