Thoughts on the
“C” Word...
By Andy Lenthall
Competence,
competency
even, or maybe competencies; strikes fear into
the heart of many a poor soul when writing guidance or codes of practice. It’s a word that, to many,
defies accurate definition. Interestingly, having
typed competence into a search engine, it throws
up an ancient definition: ‘an income large enough
to live on, typically an unearned one’. So that’s me
then, incompetent and likely to stay that way. Of
course, the more modern meaning of the word is
described thus: the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. No mention of safety there,
yet so much safety-related literature mentions the
word. That said, I’d be happy to argue that a safe
route to a successful outcome is, in itself, part of
the success. Interesting then, that in the relatively
new, revised Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations here in the UK, the absolute requirement for competence has gone,
disappeared, vanished. I hope they know what
they’re doing.
The ‘C’ word has been replaced, quite deliberately, by a need for skills, knowledge, experience
and, where relevant, organisational capability
when it comes to the requirements for the role of
principal contractor. Nothing in there about training but that can, of course, deliver the skills and
knowledge into the mix.
Then there’s a question of context. Around 12
years ago, a few months after I started working
for the PSA, I realised that I’d be hanging around
with lots of health and safety professionals. I do
have a natural ability to pick up on salient points
and handle myself in meetings and pressured en24
vironments, sometimes referred to as winging it
but, with the knowledge I’d gained, it was worth
adding a few bits and getting myself a qualification. A little later, after paying £700 for a bunch of
PDFs, a little light studying and hand written exam
papers that brought on a nasty bout of work related upper limb disorder (still got the terminology
down), I became the proud recipient of a General
Certificate from the National Examination Board in
Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH). I mentioned the fact in conversation with a friend in the
Health and Safety Game, he immediately offered
me a gig, in Spain; I had to decline. You see, my
aim was simply to sing from the right hymn sheet,
I turned the work down because I didn’t feel I had
the experience in the field to take a first job on
my own. Effectively, I’d proven my competence
by knowing my limits.
By taking out a single word and expanding, HSE
has pulled a clever stroke. It’s not just about a generic need for competence by whatever vague
definition. It’s a need for several elements related
to each project. Take the simple example of telehandler operation; your ticket doesn’t necessarily say you’re experienced in the art of moving kit
around a festival site.
Back to context though, because our very dynamic way of working can change the working environment very quickly. An individual or group can
have all the skills, knowledge and experience they
need to walk onto a site, but without the information, instruction, training and supervision required
for that specific task in that specific place on that
specific day, they could, quite possibly, be made
to look, well, a bit incompetent.