CDOIF Guidance

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Case study: WOSL Page 5 of 6
Health and Safety
Executive
Assessing and maintaining the CMS
For the ongoing assessment and maintenance of the CMS, WOSL will be:
reviewing competence standards in light of critical task analysis and risk assessment;
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conducting safety culture surveys to identify areas for improvement;
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maintaining the competence of CMS managers and assessors;
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assuring ‘proof of competence’ through the CMS and/or by mapping evidence
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across from a number of other different management systems;
continue developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as the number
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of competence assessments carried out against plan and the number of task
observations with non-compliance;
undertaking an annual review of the CMS that could include; a) determining
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whether or not the CMS continues to meet its objectives; and b) identifying the
availability of suitable and sufficient resources to run the CMS.
Verifying and auditing
Verifying and auditing the CMS is the final principle in the CMS cycle. Having
established an active CMS, WOSL intends to audit the CMS by developing KPIs
and measuring the percentage of compliance against each KPI measure. For
instance, verification will be directed towards determining compliance with agreed
standard operating procedures.
Application of CMS to the contractor workforce
Contractors are also expected to develop a CMS based on the COGENT guidelines
(2011), linked in with the WOSL CMS and to be audited by WOSL. In line with
this guidance, contractors may be categorised as type 1 contractors or as type 2
contractors, as this helps to identify where responsibility for the application of CMS
lies. For example responsibility for maintaining training records lies with either the
client company (type 1 contractor) or with the contractor (type 2 contractor).
What next?
WOSL are committed to establishing an effective and practical CMS, and having
developed and implemented the CMS described above they are now striving to
make informed improvements to the system (eg job and training needs analyses
are planned that will form the basis of further development of the job description
competency matrix, as well as the team and training competency matrix).
Further information
A Human Factors Roadmap for the Management of Major Accident Hazards
Developing and Maintaining Staff Competence (Second edition) Office of Rail
Regulation
Guidelines for Competence Management Systems for Downstream and Petroleum
Sites COGENT, UPIA 2011
Competence Human factors briefing note no. 2 HSE