Competent Person

The law says you must appoint someone competent to help you meet your health and safety duties.

You could appoint (one or a combination of):

• yourself;

• one or more of your workers;

• someone from outside your business e.g. External Consultant or Advisor

Competence’ is a mixture of experience, skills, knowledge and experience (plus the time to do the job) A H&S Consultants qualifications provide additional support for the employers own experiences and knowledge.

Neither the Regulations or, the Approved Code of Practice and guidance on the subject do not prescribe any level of training, qualification or experience as necessary to fulfil this role

In essence it would appear that competence is a confusing and ambiguous concept to most employers.

Guidance to the regulations describes competence in terms of ‘training, knowledge and experience’.

It’s usually best to get someone in-house to deal with health and safety, as they know a lot about your business and operations.

Of course, in small organisations, it’s not always possible to get someone internal to look after health and safety.

And even if you have in-house help, getting independent advice from an external health and safety consultant can be invaluable, whatever the size of your organisation.

When using a Consultant to provide competent person support the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OHSCR) provide employers with confidence that the consultants are qualified and maintain and update their knowledge to maintain registration.

Associated Legislation

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Regulation 7 (MHSWR) requires every employer to appoint one or more competent persons to assist with putting measures in place to ensure legal compliance.

The person is regarded as competent if they have ‘sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to properly assist the employer to meet his safety obligations.’