Posted By Robert K Lewis No one can ever be 100% correct. Something always hangs out the back end in some way - It is simply the unknown unknown. It is often better to be able to start with somebody who is already "competent" or build on previous competencies and spread out from there. This ultimately is why the mentoring idea needs to take off. Bob

Posted By Christopher Hi Garry I don't think you can have a definitive yes or no response. We have all tried out systems of work in an attempt to improve the quality of the work for our staff and our employers. However, if you as an experienced person defined by the criteria of the Management Regs suggest that you are competent in an activity and someone takes on board what you say as an acceptable measure of your capabillity and it proves disastrous, well be prepared for the potential claims against you. The establishment of acceptability would surely be are you building blocks on what you have already undertaken previously and found successful or are you simply trying to promote a service for which the basic foundations are not yet in place. Sorry if I've missed the point on this one, but I've had experience of so called professionals attempting work on a trial and error basis without making their competancy or lack of it open for discussion from the outset.

Posted By LauraR I think that the management regs recognise that there will be trial and error in H&S solutions by requiring us to review the effectiveness of the controls that we put in place as part of the risk assessment process. Hopefully if you implement an effective monitoring and review regime you will be identifying the errors before they cause a problem. So in my humble opinion H&S is about trial and error - in order to continually improve it must be....

Posted By Peter Leese I suppose in the worst case it's error followed by a trial!

Posted By J Knight Very good, made me laugh, John

Posted By Raymond Rapp Another thread regarding competence...why so many hang ups? Anyway, everyone makes mistakes from time to time. As a general h&s practitioner I have to cover a lot of ground and what I do not know I find out through research. Sometimes those who are performing a task often know the safest way to do it, therefore it is just a matter of extracting the right information (inspector Clueso). There are no 'right and wrongs' in h&s - provided you can justify your actions. Ray

Posted By Chris Jerman Remember that there is a world of difference between 'to err' (ie be mistaken) and being negligent. As professionals we are expected to give advice based upon reasonable judgement. That reason comes from competency and the validity of facts known at the time (ie the state of technical knowledge within our peer group - current thinking if you will). We give professional judgements. Clearly, learning by mistakes is a way of life. However, there are caveats here. You can't release a SSOW and wait to see if anyone dies to prove that it's safe! If we all survive it was a good call. Well, it's not my way of doing it anyway. Where we can't advise well, we must say so. To wing it and hope for the best is most certainly a dereliction of our duties and would be seen as negligent. Asking sometimes 'daft' looking questions on this forum are a way of gaining strength for many budding professionals who seek to raise their competency; the true measure of which, as has already been said, is knowing when you're not. We must not be afraid to have the courage of our convictions and give clear advice without fear of being 'shot down' by those who claim to know better. (humility is a virtue folks). Any type of assessment that we have to deal with in our work (OK taking out the extreme stuff) is only intended to be an indicator of the state observed. No general legislation has been written in absolutes (again, taking aside coshh, noise etc)in respect of assessments and we seem to be beating ourselves up especially over fire. As long as you are clear what level any assessment is intended to show a general practitioner should be fine performing fire assessments (they're not RISK assessments anyway, they're actually likelihood assessments and recovery control analysis). Can someone perform a base-line assessment to show that the basics are covered - of course they can if that's what is intended.This assessment may be sufficient to prompt a deeper assessment or indeed confirm that everything is under control. Should someone be assessing flame spread and compartmentalisation with nothing more than a NEBOSH cert - err, no. All of our legislative structure must be taken in context and in the spirit that it was intended. Competency is a moveable feast - and so is what is expected of the individual. Please don't paste some huge section of some regulation in as a response - this is intended to be a forum for discussion not regurgitation. Regards all. C

Posted By Chris Jerman Agreed John. I'd like to think that doing any recognised course with the word "fire" in the title would prepare you for more than being able to see lightning and hear thunder. As I said, there was never the intention in the order to create rules so stringent that only the most highly qualified could do this. I do sometimes wonder how we get so wound up over these issues. Perhaps its' all this damn rain! C