Competence Certificate Validity Period
| The validity period of a Competence Certificate is a topic which often appears to be misunderstood. Various matters have been raised, ranging from why do we need a competence certificate, through to why does it have a validity period and need to be renewed periodically? Competence assessment The need for some kind of competence assessment and certification should be quite obvious. I cannot imagine that any of us would be particularly happy about flying in an airplane, if the pilot was not qualified and assessed as being competent. Would you want to , perhaps, undergo a medical procedure if the surgeon was not fully trained, qualified and competent to do the operation? I suspect not. There are several cases where competence needs to be demonstrated, due to various different requirements for instance: • Legal requirements, that require us to demonstrate competence, such as driving a car on a public road. • The company hiring us may require competence for their insurance needs, common offshore. • Membership of a society such SUT or IMarEST The first stage in the route to competence is usually the learning of some information or knowledge. This could be based on knowledge from a hobby or an interest and does not necessarily need to be an academic course although, within a highly technical or complicated environment it is highly likely that it would be. But knowledge and information alone does not demonstrate competence. I know why an airplane flies. I know how it flies and how it is controlled but I could not be assessed as competent to fly one without undergoing a lot of theory training and examinations, hands on or simulator hours and, finally, undergoing a very strict assessment process to receive my pilots licence and type rating for a particular type of aircraft. Even then I could only fly under the watchful eye of an experienced captain. To be considered competent therefore I need, knowledge, experience, ability and an assessment, carried out by an experienced and qualified person. Competence Validity When the forerunner, to the current Competence and Training Core Committee, the Certification & Personnel Competence (TCPC) committee, first created the IMCA Competence Assessment and Assurance Guidelines (Competence Tables C002, C003, C004 and C005) in 2002 it was decided that an appropriate re-validation period would be 3 years. In 2011 it was deemed that, because there are now very robust in-house competence schemes in place and well-established, a period of no more than 5 years is more appropriate. However it is left to the discretion, of the individual companies, and their requirements to develop their own criteria for competence validity and ongoing processes within their own schemes. It is important to note that the validity of competence will depend on a number of issues such as: • Whether the person was carrying out the same job during the time period • Technological developments • Appraisal arrangements • Whether the record of competence was being regularly maintained. Validation periods and the level of assessment may also be affected by the experience of the individual being assessed. How long they have been operating in their current role or role they are being assessed for and when the last assessment was carried out. For example care should be taken to note if an individual has been promoted since the date of the last assessment since this is not simply a re-assessment but a new assessment on an individual who potentially has not been in the post for very long. Recording It was also agreed that all personnel in company in-house competence assurance and assessment schemes should be encouraged to keep evidence of competence as current as possible, so that the question of ongoing competence would not be seen as an issue I n the future. |
Editorial
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