The Case of Compliance - Meeting legal competency
Introduction
It’s not going to take Sherlock to solve this one, all you need to do is look at the facts and its easy for all to see. It seems though the industry has been slow to adapt to changes leaving customers appointing non-compliant workers.
It’s not simply a case of if an individual is not competent to do the work, more the question of do they have the relevant qualifications to prove this? For instance, someone could pick you up from the station and drive you home easily showing they have competence in driving however, if you ask to see a driver’s licence and they don’t have one, would you get in the car?
Just because someone shows competence in a task doesn’t mean they are legally qualified to do so.
History
Following the tragedy at Grenfell a lot changed in industry regulation and legislation, the construction sector looked hard at where is competence? and what does competence mean?
The Building Safety Act (BSA) 2022
Section 35 of the Building safety Act (BSA) 2022 states that,
A “competence requirement” is a requirement relating to the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours of an individual;
An act of law is a “YOU MUST DO” just like you must have a licence to drive you must show through qualifications set against the National Occupation Standards that you possess the Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours to be able to perform your work. If you cannot prove this then it will be deemed as a contravention of The Building Safety Act.
How to prove compliance in competence
Experience and Behaviours aside what people will be looking for is where is the skills and knowledge for my occupation? If by law under the Building Safety Act section 35 I must have the skills and knowledge, where do I find these?
The skills and knowledge are written by Sector Skills Councils or Standard Setting Bodies, usually appointed or licensed by government to make National
Occupation Standards (NOS) Awarding bodies will then base qualifications on the defined skills and knowledge standards of the NOS. So, if by law you must achieve a qualification based on the NOS, you find one.
This is the key to linking the skills and knowledge of an individual performing their task to the law set out in the Building and Safety Act.
Last year the BSEFSD National Occupational Standards was developed for those who inspect fire and smoke dampers, carrying out pre-commissioning checks and tests. Regardless of ones experience, if they are unable to prove their competence by achieving the BSEFSD standard then they are no longer deemed competent and under section 11F of the Building Regulations, directly linked to the BSA 2022 section 35. If they are no longer deemed competent then under item 6 section 11E of the Building regulations then they must not take the work on.
What does this mean for you?
Under section 11E point 2a of the Building Regulations 2010 if you are appointing someone to undertake work you must take steps in clarifying competence.
Instructing a person(s)/company to undertake works they are not fully qualified to undertake places you in breach of The Building Regulations 2010 and the instructed company in breach of their legal responsibilities under section 35 of the Building Safety Act.
Our Commitment
Here at Nitor Ventilation we have made the commitment to have our engineers NVQ, SVQ qualified as well as 3rd party assured. This means that our customers can rest assured that they are dealing with a company that meets all the legal competence requirements within acts of laws and amended regulations. This also means that in the event of something going wrong our customers responsibility is covered as they have appointed correctly qualified personnel to undertake a task.
References/further information
The Building Regulations 2010
The Building Safety Act -
GOV.UK
https://paddeco.com/
National Occupational Standards (NOS) -
GOV.UK
