A competent person is not someone who is expected to know everything about health and safety. Employers need access to people with the right skills, knowledge and experience for the risks they face. In construction that often means combining effective in-house management with specialist advice where the work goes beyond the competence of a general adviser.
Why the definition matters in real construction work
Construction businesses sometimes appoint a health and safety manager, adviser or external consultant and then assume that person can independently deal with every specialist issue that arises. That is not what the law requires, and it is rarely a sensible way to manage complex work.
The more useful question is whether the person providing advice is competent for the particular risk, project and decision being considered.
What does Regulation 7 require?
Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to appoint one or more competent people to assist them in complying with health and safety law.
HSE’s guidance on getting competent help describes competence in terms of having the skills, knowledge and experience needed to recognise hazards and help the employer establish sensible controls.
The wording “one or more” is important. The law does not assume that every organisation will find all of the expertise it needs in one individual.
Does a competent person need a formal qualification?
Not necessarily for the general Regulation 7 role. Formal qualifications can provide valuable evidence of knowledge and professional development, but competence must still be considered against the work being undertaken.
Holding a recognised health and safety qualification does not automatically make somebody competent to design temporary works, calculate a complex lifting operation, carry out occupational hygiene monitoring or provide specialist fire-engineering advice. Equally, substantial practical knowledge and experience should not be ignored simply because someone does not hold a particular certificate.
Construction adds its own competence requirements. Under Regulation 8 of CDM 2015, contractors and designers must possess the skills, knowledge, experience and organisational capability needed for the work they undertake.
Where does general competence end?
A competent construction health and safety adviser may be well placed to support general risk management, RAMS, inspections, contractor management, incident investigation, policies, training arrangements and compliance monitoring.
Depending on the work, additional specialist expertise may still be required for matters such as:
- occupational hygiene monitoring;
- asbestos surveying or analytical work;
- structural engineering;
- complex lifting operations;
- specialist temporary works design;
- occupational health; or
- specialist fire engineering.
Recognising that boundary is part of competence. The strongest adviser is often the person who knows when the issue has moved outside their own expertise and obtains the right additional support.
Managers and supervisors remain part of the competence system
External advice does not transfer the employer’s legal duties. Directors still need to make decisions, provide resources and ensure controls are implemented. Site managers and supervisors turn those arrangements into what actually happens during construction.
A consultant can write a strong procedure but will not usually be standing beside every excavation, item of plant or work-at-height activity. Contractors therefore need competence at several levels: leadership, professional advice, project management, frontline supervision and workforce execution.
Workplace-based Supervisory and Management NVQs can provide evidence of competence in real management activities, while IOSH Managing Safely can support managers and supervisors in understanding risk and their responsibilities.
How should employers check competence?
Do not reduce the check to a list of certificates. Consider the person’s relevant training, knowledge, practical experience, recent work, familiarity with the industry and ability to deal with the particular risks involved.
For an external consultant, the scope should be clear. If the business needs advice on lifting operations, for example, establish whether the adviser has relevant lifting knowledge and experience rather than assuming a general health and safety qualification covers the subject automatically.
The same principle applies to employees, subcontractors and supervisors. Cards and qualifications may form part of the evidence but should be considered alongside actual capability and the support available.
What should you do now?
- Identify who is formally providing competent health and safety assistance.
- Define the areas they are competent to advise on.
- Review whether the company’s work has become larger, more complex or higher risk.
- Identify activities requiring specialist expertise outside the core team.
- Check that site managers and supervisors can implement the advice in practice.
- Review qualifications, relevant experience and continuing professional development.
- Make responsibility clear where several advisers or specialists are involved.
- Act on competent advice once it has been provided.
Our professional view
A strong competence system is layered rather than dependent on one individual. Employers need competent managers, supervisors and workers as well as access to specialist professional advice where necessary.
Expecting one health and safety adviser to be an expert in every technical discipline can create false confidence. Good professional judgement includes understanding the limit of your own competence and bringing the right specialist into the team before the issue becomes a problem.
All Star Safety provides construction-focused health and safety consultancy, including retained competent-person support, site inspections and project-specific advice, while working alongside other technical specialists where the project requires them.