More information on competence

Competence is the ability to undertake responsibilities and to perform activities to a recognised standard on a regular basis. Competence is a combination of practical and thinking skills, experience and knowledge.

• Human factors briefing note no. 2 - Competence [145KB]
• Extract from inspectors human factors toolkit - Core topic 1: Competence assurance [34KB]
• Developing and Maintaining Staff Competence, Second edition published by the Office of Rail Regulation, 2007 ISBN 07176 1732 7 (first published by the Health and Safety Executive, 2002).
  The guidance is primarily aimed at those responsible for managing, controlling and assessing the competence of individuals and teams in the railway industries. However, this guidance is fully applicable to other high hazard industries, such as the oil & gas, chemicals and nuclear industries. It describes the principles and factors that should be considered to improve existing competence management systems, and set up and implement new systems.
• Managing competence for safety-related systems, issued by the Health and Safety Executive, the Institution of Engineering Technology and the British Computer Society, 2007
  • Part 1: Key guidance [690KB]
  • Part 2: Supplementary material [1.1MB]
  The purpose of this guidance is to help companies manage the competence of their staff who are involved with the functional safety of electronic safety-related systems for protection or control (e.g. fly-by-wire in aircraft, shutdown systems in the petrochemical industry and offshore, and safeguarding arrangements for machinery and industrial automation). It recognises the importance of competence requirements in international standards such as IEC  61508 ‘Functional safety of electrical / electronic / programmable electronic safety-related systems’. While the focus is the functional safety of safety-related systems, the principles of the guidance can be applied to competence management systems with more general scope and to career development and professional development schemes.
• Study group on human factors: first report on training and related matters ACSNI, ISBN 0 11 885543, HMSO 1990, now via HSE Books
• Competence assessment for the hazardous industries.
  Research Report 086/2003. Includes a useable format for sites to use for self assessment of their training and competency arrangements.
• Nuclear Directorate - Technical Assessment Guide: Contractorisation. [44KB]
  Contractorisation is the process of downsizing, restructuring or other initiatives to enable contractors to be used to replace or augment company staff in performing activities.
• Nuclear Directorate - Technical Assessment Guide: Intelligent Customer Capability. [155KB]
  This document considers assessment of the technical and safety assessment capabilities in the context of the intelligent user of technical services, safety advice, safety information and assessment.
• Nuclear Directorate - Technical Inspection Guide: Instructions and Training. [30KB]
  This guidance provides a framework to aid inspection for License Condition 10.  The purpose of this Condition is to ensure that all those people on the site who have responsibility for an action which may affect safety are adequately trained for that purpose.