Posted By Chris Abbott Nice idea. One question: How do people like me get experience in your view? I work in an office of 235+ staff. I am the only Health & Safety Advisor. I have 1 Nebosh Cert and 1 Diploma Level 3 in Health & Safety - yet I'm not considered, by your argument, to be suitably qualified for my position (The Diploma I hold is not recognised by IOSH). There are benefits to what you say, and every company should think about adopting a RFT (Right First Time) attitude - but in practice, I think it more important to encourage young safety semi-professionals to flourish in new roles, and allow them to train, with time off or not as the case maybe. Companies that invest in their people, both in terms of "taking a risk" on basic qualifications and by agree to help with training to further the career of the respective staff member, get much more out of their employees, promote a good company image, and get my vote! Regards Chris

Posted By Chris Abbott It's cool Tony! :) Actually from what you've just said, the point is well made. I do sometimes wish I had a more experienced H&S Professional here that I could bounce ideas off... Thankfully, I have this forum! Chris

Posted By Tony Birchall No matter how good a person thinks they are, it's always wiser to ask someone else if you don't know, or resource the information elsewhere. You have to identify your own limitations.

Posted By Tony Birchall That's why it's so important to develop a good safety culture in any business - with commitment from the top. Sadly this rarely happens. I recal something published by The Institue of Directors which gave a list of business goals. Members voted on priorities, profit was top. That's understandable. Good health and safety was sadly 9th out of ten!

Posted By Tony Birchall A Nebosh Diploma does make you more qualified, because if you successfully complete it then you have a qualification do you not? Then again, the same applies with the City and Guilds route or Nottingham Trent Diploma also. The point I was making is that many employers can fool themselves by recruiting someone not as well qualified, pay them less then have to put that person through a more highly intense training programme such as the Diploma or NVQ. It may cost them more in the long run. You may also likely be challenged by the enforcing authority, if things were to go pear shaped at a later date, if you safety adviser is not as well trained as he could be - against the level of risk in the particular workplace.

Posted By Peter Lee Geoff, Trouble is with common sense is that its not common !

Posted By Chris Abbott That's almost as bad as the poster I kept from my last company ".. If you have a serious Accident or death, please call Occupational Health for assistance..." Ya......... right...........

Posted By Bev Carter I've read with interest all your comments, all of which I agree with. The crux is that competency is a grey area and therefore cannot be defined. Sure, it makes sense for a company to have the most highly qualified and highly skilled and experienced staff they can get (for whatever position)and this is often reflected in job advertisements where the level of expertise asked for greatly exceeds that necessary to do the job. I'm looking at it from the other view point - in my company I am the so called "competent person" required by the management regs. I was known personally to my employers as I have worked with them at a previous company, so when I was taken on a year ago, I had some H&S experience but no formal qualifications (just in house courses). I did the NEBOSH General Cert this year and would like to do the diploma as I personally do not feel fully competent to do my job to the highest standard (which the workers and company deserve). However, the directors feel that just having the General Cert satisfies the legal requirement of the competent person so that is as far as they will go, particularly as I shot myself in the foot a bit by getting a distinction!

Posted By Philip McAleenan Dear All, If we consider that an employer is obliged to engage persons who are competent to carry out their work tasks, then it follows that a person who cannot carry out any work task without causing harm (in its widest sense) to themselves, others or to the company is not a competent worker. An appropriate, and far from grey, definition of competence is "the consistent skilful application of skills and knowledge to any specified work operation", where the use of the term skilful implies conducting the operation to the highest standards within the field. In this there is no dichotomy between the skills required to do a job and health & safety. Competence is as much about the process as it is about the production of an end product, and the skill in getting there requires that no one be unnecessarily exposed to hazards. Viewed correctly, H&S is integral to what a worker does, and not a discrete function that can be ruled, managed or taught separately from their specific area of competence. Regards, Philip

Posted By Sean Fraser We all seem to have left out one major consideration here - I would contend that most of us hold other non-safety qualifications or recognised trades, and that our work in H&S has not been our sole occupation since leaving formative education. For example, I hold a degree in Management - I use what that teaching to understand and anticipate how managers think, so I can at least attempt to explain things in their "language". I would presume that most of us on the forum will be similarly qualified (i.e. engineering, medicine, psychology, law, management, arts, whatever). How much do our base qualifications and experience contribute to our current work methodolgy, and how can that be included in the assessment of competence? I would argue the case that an experienced engineer who is thoroughly familiar with a particular industry and holds a NEBOSH Cert could be deemed more competent because of his specialist knowledge, than a first time graduate holding a degree in OSH. It all comes down to understnading the hazards, the risks and the potential solutions to reduce them ALARP. This is not to say that 30 year veteren is automatically better than another who has only just started out, nor does one qualifiaction necessarily "trump" another. I still stand by my principle that the level of competence is dependent on the nature of the hazards, complexity of risk and the consequences of failure in proportion to the operations. And the competence applies to the individual - not the qualifications they hold. Certificates only confirm that the knowledge has been imparted and to some degree followed by some demonstration of understanding - but it doesn't automatically make someone competent. There is still the experience aspect, and that can mean more than a clutch of degrees - even more so in some cases, as we are all familiar with the stereotype of the nutty professor. Knows his stuff, but absolutely no concept of the practicalities involved. There is more to H&S than just the knowledge.