Nuclear Future Volume 9 issue 1
SQEP staff to work on nuclear projects is a key plank of the UK’s regulatory system. Most people feel comfortable with the ‘Q’, but what does the ‘E’ really mean? Clearly you can be well qualified and have many years under your belt, but is that all it means? Surely not. Surely we need confidence that people have the right qualifications AND the right competence to apply that learning. There are many ways of recording and assessing the adequacy of qualifications, but how do you measure how competent a person actually is at their job? This unique combination of skills, knowledge and behaviours is fundamentally important in ensuring you have the right person on the job. For nuclear safety-critical work this is doubly important. Understanding this aspect is a key part of work planned by the
National Skills Academy for Nuclear (NSAN) to extend their Nuclear Skills Passport scheme to embrace the E of SQEP as well as the Q. Atkins have been selected by the Skills Academy to assist with this project based on work we have done to implement a people-centric nuclear competence management system. We are also working with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) to adapt the people-
Where jobs and roles are less well defined and contain considerable uncertainty and ambiguity then the traditional human performance view of SQEP does not provide the answer
centric approach to align their education and training solutions to individual learning needs in UK supply chain companies. In this paper I will review the E of SQEP, ask what is really involved
and – by looking at the work we have done in Atkins – identify the key aspects of a thorough competence management system for all role types. The basic principles apply to any organisation and this approach will be developed in partnership with the Skills Academy to provide industry with a rigorous approach to dealing with SQEP in a uniform way across the nuclear sector.
Competence Licence condition 12 requires that: ‘The licensee shall make and implement adequate arrangements to ensure that only suitably qualified and experienced persons perform any duties which may affect the safety of operations on the site’. The supporting Technical Assessment Guide [1] introduces the idea of competence by reference to the relevant IAEA Technical Report [2] which defines competence as ‘the ability to put skills and knowledge into practice in order to
50 SQEP
Assessing the E of SQEP S
uitably Qualified and Experienced Persons. License Condition 12. We’ve all heard of it and it’s a fundamental part of any licensee’s management arrangements. The requirement for
David Whitmore argues for a broader people-centric definition of competence
perform a job in an effective and efficient manner to an established standard’. This definition is important and, I would argue, flawed in a number of aspects. If we analyse this definition in detail the key aspects are: • Competence is the application of skills and knowledge; • Competencies are role-based; • Competence should be measured against a standard (i.e. role profile).
The TAG goes on to identify the concept of a competence management system and highlights the key elements of such a system, i.e.: • analysis of roles and associated competencies • identification of learning objectives and training needs • training programme design • selection of appropriate training methods and media • assessment of competence • evaluation of training effectiveness • organisation and support of the training function As you can see the emphasis here is on training as a means of closing a competence gap (i.e. the skills and knowledge gap). This is a human performance approach to competence management; and revolves around a number of key assumptions that require the nature of the task to be constant and capable of being subjected to task analysis, such that standards can be defined for the role that lead to clear training requirements that all post-holders should have undertaken. This is fine for operational roles such as reactor panel operatives,
plant maintainers, health physicists or inspection engineers; but the concept of SQEP is often applied universally throughout an organisation including non-standard roles such as engineering design, safety assessment, project management and – most notably – senior management. Where jobs and roles are less well defined and contain considerable uncertainty and ambiguity then the traditional human performance view of SQEP does not provide the answer. I believe there are a number of drawbacks and I will assess these
in more detail in this paper. These areas are: • Competence is a function of more than just knowledge and skills. Attitude is a key element of competence and needs to be addressed in a fully effective competence management system. Attitude in this context refers to the behaviours a person adopts in the delivery of their work. This would include, for example, team-working, dealing with ambiguity, leadership and, specifically in this case, nuclear professionalism or safety culture.
• A broad approach to development of competence should be adopted which embraces more than just training as the means of enhancing competence. The target should be a lifelong learning approach to development of competence. SQEP assessment should be linked into the organisation’s normal performance appraisal and employee development system and not managed independently of it.
• An organisation should adopt a risk-based approach such that
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