Event Safety Insights Issue Two | Winter 2016 | Page 24

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.