The ‘C’ word (competency in the electrical installation industry)

By: Leon Markwell

Introduction

It’s quite surprising how many words relevant to electrical installation and electrical safety begin with the letter C. There are ‘cable’, ‘current’, ‘contractor’, ‘cost’, ‘construction’, ‘certification’, ‘compliance’, and of course the big one, ‘competence’!

Since the tragic Grenfell Tower fire incident, a light has been shining on competence and it has been looked at in a way it perhaps never has been before. We are seeing new proposals for competence and competence management, but what really is competence or being competent? It is a specific requirement of Regulation 16 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, which requires persons to be competent to prevent danger and injury, but there is no specific legal definition of ‘competent’ or ‘competence’.  Various non-legal attempts at defining it have been made, but in every case that goes to law, a court will decide the circumstances and competence (or a lack of it!).

A definition of ‘competent person’ was introduced in Part 2 of BS 7671:2008:

Competent person. A person who possesses sufficient technical knowledge, relevant practical skills and experience for the nature of the electrical work undertaken and is able at all times to prevent danger and, where appropriate, injury to him/herself and others.

but this was removed from BS 7671:2008+A3:2015 and replaced by the definition ‘Skilled person (electrically)’:

Skilled person (electrically). Person who possesses, as appropriate to the nature of the electrical work to be undertaken, adequate education, training and practical skills, and who is able to perceive risks and avoid hazards which electricity can create.

(This is understood not to require a person to be qualified with electrical craft skills, only to have knowledge to avoid danger.)

and ‘Instructed person (electrically)’:

Instructed person (electrically). Person adequately advised or supervised by a skilled person (as defined) to enable that person to perceive risks and to avoid hazards which electricity can create.

Unfortunately, this just provided further definitions on the same competence theme for people to understand. The ‘instructed person’ definition also has the ‘circular’ note that Regulation 16 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires persons to be ‘competent’ to prevent danger and injury. However, nowhere is there any mention of experience, attitude or management processes to confirm that the required work has been correctly completed and documented.

What is competence?

The term ‘competency’ was believed to have been created in 1973 by the American psychologist, David McClelland, to indicate the human factors by which competence depends. Initially, competencies were related to effective performance and were task and organization specific. Nowadays in education, vocational training and career guidance, the term competency indicates each personal characteristic generally utilizable in the workplace, in school or in ordinary life, regardless of the nature of the work or level of performance achievable through its use.

Almost 50 years ago, McClelland (1973) wrote his seminal article on competencies, beginning the competency movement. Competencies have since grown into a useful input for human resource (HR) tools. Input is the key word in the last sentence. A competency model in and of itself is not useful – it is just a bunch of words. Only when it is incorporated into HR practices does the model become useful, and a consequence of being used is that it becomes part of an employment decision. If that HR practice is later questioned, then the underlying competency model that serves as a foundation is open to detailed scrutiny [1].

Whatever the requirement, to be ‘competent’ is not new, and on the 11 May 1882, the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians (now the IET) decided to appoint a committee to consider rules for the prevention of fire risks from electricity. Those first rules are sound general advice rather than a wiring specification. They differ in intent, as well as in content, from the 18th Edition of BS 7671. The first rules were expressly “for the guidance and instruction of those who have...electric lighting apparatus installed in their premises”. The preamble to the rules makes the point that the chief dangers of electricity arise from ignorance and the chief element of safety is the employment of skilled and experienced electricians to supervise the work. (I don’t believe that this advice has changed since then!)

In How competent are you?, a blog post on the Construction Industry Council website posted on 27 October 2020, Construction Industry Council Chief Executive Officer, Graham Watts OBE, writes:

Much more recently, evidence that was given to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry has revealed an industry that was complacent and seemingly unaware of crucial safety issues. It has also typified the industry’s broken business model, which has encouraged a careless race to the bottom in terms of winning work and one that has gone unchecked by a building regulatory regime that stops well short of control. The Grenfell Tower fire has brought all of this into the sharpest focus.                

While the industry must take responsibility for its own failings, recent governments are also culpable. The rampant pursuit of deregulation has progressively emasculated the building control profession. In my dealings with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government prior to the Grenfell Tower fire, the officials responsible for building regulations were metaphorically side-lined to a broom cupboard somewhere in the basement. Building safety was never discussed in meetings. Complacency ruled everywhere.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) operates the Building Regulation’s ‘competent person scheme’ under which, companies (enterprises) deemed suitable through initial and regular third-party assessment are able to self-certify that their own completed work complies with the requirements of the Building Regulations (where these apply to the work being done) rather than receive an independent Local Authority Building Control inspection and approval. Unfortunately, the self-certification is usually carried out by supervisors who may not have actually carried out the specific work.

Since 2002, on behalf of the electrical installation industry, the IET has accommodated and supported the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification Management Committee (an independent industry committee and not a part of the IET) which publishes the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification document, the base document covering the minimum requirements necessary to determine the competence of a company (enterprise) undertaking electrical work to carry out electrical design, construction, maintenance, and/or inspection and testing work in compliance with BS 7671 and self-certify their work.

Competence now

The Building Safety Act was introduced in 2022, coming into effect in parts in 2022 and 2023, and has considerably changed the way building regulations requirements and the competence to apply them correctly and safely are reviewed. It is not in the scope of this article to discuss the Building Safety Act requirements, but perhaps that is worth a separate article (or more…!).

There are specific competence requirements built into the Act (such as the requirement for architects to undertake continuing professional development (CPD)), specific requirements to present a design at certain ‘gateways’ and the requirement to provide a completed building with documentation for inspection before occupation handover (no more “the operation and maintenance manuals are to follow”!).

BSI have now published BS 8670-1:2024. This is a set of core competence criteria covering the knowledge, skills, experience and behaviours required to work on buildings of all types and scales. The goal is to help raise levels of individual professional competence across the built environment in support of the new Building Safety Regime.  Based on experiential feedback from the industry, BS 8670-1:2024 provides a benchmark framework that will help professional institutions and other organizations develop sector-specific competence frameworks for technical and non-technical roles, raising professional competency across the sector.

Conclusion

So, what has gone wrong with our industry when we already have many competence, training and skills requirements to work to and with? Perhaps construction time pressures, competitive tendering and required profitability etc., should be reconsidered?

It’s not possible to discuss competence in detail in these shorter Wiring Matters articles, so I’ll continue this in another article in the future. The IET certainly supports individual competence for any work being carried out, relevant training and continuing professional development.