[SystemSafety] Competence Criteria for Safety Practitioners

[tracyinoz at mac.com]

Hi Carl

I found the timing of your raising the issue of ‘competency’ quite pertinent given my most recent experiences on the subject with the last two projects I was involved with.

On one project the customer advocated a process which fairly well reflect the aspects described in the HSE publication 'Managing competence for safety-related systems’ and I would agree with you that, given an acceptance that there was a need for an organisation  to assess competence as part of any assurance claim, there should be some guidance on how this could best be achieved and documented (for reasons related to the second project discussed below). What the guidance appears to recognise is that, rather than having some overall ‘competence’ measure, there is a need to consider competencies in a specific context, be that for a project, organisation or particular activity. Where I will take exception to the terminology used by some of the responders to this topic, is that competencies are not just confinde to safety practitioners, but extends to all personnel involved in the task/project, specifically as it relates to technical competencies (the HSE publication does not restrict itself in that way); as an aside I would note that the HSE publication is referenced in IEC61508-3 as part of its requirements for addressing competencies.

The project identified  project-specific technical competencies, assessed the personnel against those competencies via a panel and provided a relative score which reflected  whether they could operate: unsupervised, act as technical peer reviewer, had no competence etc. Logically, when we considered the activity of interviewing personnel for a job, project or task, implicitly we are making these specific competency assessments against those immediate technical needs, so in many cases this competency assessment process should simply be a formal record of those considerations. It should be noted that the regulator in this example, specifically asked for evidence of competency which differentiated between designing the product (electrical overhead) and testing and commissioning said structure, recognising that whilst they may have the same underlying academic qualifications, these two tasks required notably different skillets (competencies) and therefore were required to have explicit consideration/evidence of different competencies.

The other project could not have been in starker contrast to the the one above with the approach to addressing competency amounting to nothing more than a hand wave at a bunch of CVs; the safety assurance case basically stated that they had some CVs which could be provided to the reviewer on request, but clearly a CV would have no supporting evidence as to what effect they brought to that  project, or evidence of the specific technical competency needs of that project. 

I see consideration of the subject of competency to have two very distinct parts: 1) identification and recognition of the specific technical requirements of the project or activity (likely determined by a number technical leads) and 2) an assessment of the personnel against those requirements.

I think there is a need to look wider than just safety-practioners when considering competency, because the best safety program in the world will ultimately be dependent on the technical expertise (competency) of the engineers and engineering processes to deliver any identified requirements (safety or otherwise); systems assurance and safety assurance should go hand-in-hand in any safety case claim.

Regards,
Tracy


On 19 Jul 2014, at 8:24 pm, Carl Sandom <carl at isys-integrity.com> wrote:

> Hi Andrew,
>  
> Thanks for your interesting comments.
>  
> I don't really understand the apparent contradiction between stating that there is no need for competence guidelines (as such) but there is a need for organizations to assess the competence of their staff. Without some starting point such as guidelines how would an organization know what constitutes 'best practice' in terms of safety competencies?
>  
> Perhaps we need to agree to disagree on the topic of enforcing competence schemes such as the one that SaRS are advocating. I don't think it should be the responsibility of any single organization (like IET) to take on the role of 'arbiters of safety competence' which would effectively make the practice of safety engineering a 'closed shop'. In my opinion some organizations have seen this issue as a way of exerting control over the safety community and expanding their influence. Most organization operating in both regulated and non-regulated safety-related domains are responsible for the competence of their own safety staff and that's why in my opinion guidelines are an invaluable starting point. I really don't agree that the originator of a set of guidelines needs to be 'a player' to make those guidelines worthwhile.
>  
> BTW, I assume you deliberately wanted to keep your response off the system safety mailing list?
>  
> Best Regards
> Carl
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> From: Andrew Rae [mailto:andrew.rae at york.ac.uk] 
> Sent: 18 July 2014 16:36
> To: Carl Sandom
> Cc: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de; Cooney,Andrew
> Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Competence Criteria for Safety Practitioners
>  
> Carl,
> We had a close look at the IET guidelines when we were discussing accreditation (for safety practitioners, but particularly with a view to accrediting courses) with SARS.
> 
> A quick answer:
> ·        Is there a general need for competence guidelines for safety practitioners?
> Not as such. There is a need for organisations to assess the competency of their staff, to know whether particular means of improving competency (eg training or education) are going to fill gaps, and for individuals to be able to acquire and demonstrate competency in a way that is transferable. The IET has never shown willing to take on this role, and guidelines independent of a proper competency scheme are always going to be overly vague and general.
> ·        If you are familiar with the IET document:
> 
> o   Is it suitable in its current form?
> 
> No. The problems are numerous.
> 
> 1st main problem:
> It has a view of competency "levels" that is next to useful. The whole "supervised practioner", "practitioner", "Expert" idea is unworkable in a field where what is important is the ability to conduct specific tasks competently. To avoid any other controversy, let's take an imaginary technique of "flobbing". 
>   Can I flobb?
>   Can I write guidelines on how to flobb or teach others how to flobb?
>   Can I act as an informed customer of flobb?
>   Can I review flobbs?
> 
> These are all separate competencies, acquired and demonstrated in separate ways.
> 
> 2nd main problem:
> It doesn't adequately recognise that any safety practitioner role really has three separate competency sets:
>    Competency generic to the practice of safety (e.g. most safety management skills fall here)
>    Domain knowledge
>    Knowledge of safety techniques particular to the domain
> 
> A competency scheme needs to avoid setting out the particular competencies relevant for a particular role, because they all have a different subset of each of these, but it can't ignore the master list of competencies or it is useless as guidance. 
> 
> o   Does it need to be revised?
> Not unless the IET is genuinely willing to get involved in safety competency development and accreditation. Non-players shouldn't be offering advice to players. This isn't to say that IET involvement wouldn't be welcome, but the willingness of some individuals associated with IET has never been backed by a commitment at the organisation level.
>  - Are you aware of any other safety competence guidelines?
> The SARS accreditation scheme is the most developed I've seen recently. I haven't been involved for a while though.
>  
> 
> My system safety podcast: http://disastercast.co.uk
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>  
> 
> On 18 July 2014 12:13, Carl Sandom <carl at isys-integrity.com> wrote:
> In 1999 the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in collaboration with the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and British Computer Society (BCS) published the “Competence Criteria for Safety-Related System Practitioners”. This work was revised in 2007 and published only as a PDF download.  The principal purpose of the document is to help safety practitioners assess and maintain the competence of their engineering staff. The IET are currently developing a business case with a view to revising these guidelines and it will be seeking wide consultation and clarity on approach, format, etc.
>  
> Initially, the IET want to determine the general opinion of safety practitioners on this topic.  Does anyone on this list have a view on the following broad questions?
> ·        Is there a general need for competence guidelines for safety practitioners?
> 
> ·        If you are familiar with the IET document:
> 
> o   Is it suitable in its current form?
> 
> o   Does it need to be revised?
> 
> ·        Are you aware of any other safety competence guidelines?
> 
>  
> Best Regards
> Carl Sandom
> iSys Integrity Ltd.
> 
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