Competent Person and Health & Safety Law

A competent person or persons, is required to be appointed by every employer to help meet their health and safety duties.

A competent person is someone who has sufficient training, experience and knowledge to carry out a specific job in order for them to:

• Provide advice and assist an organisation properly, this can be someone appointed by the organisation
• Assist you for more in depth tasks that are beyond the competency of you and your employees, which may involve the use of an external and qualified professional representative

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Some health and safety legislation describes what level of training, skills and knowledge is required to be competent to carry out certain tasks and this information should be consulted on before appointing someone.

Competency levels of both internally appointed and external professionals should be checked regularly to ensure that the people used are meeting health and safety requirements and third parties can be checked by asking for a series of competencies, such as:

• Requesting a copy of safety documentation and insurance policies
• Requesting copies of testimonials from their clients
• Requesting copies of relevant individual qualifications and certificates.