Duty holders & appointments
What is a competent person?
A competent person is someone with the training, knowledge and experience to carry out a particular task safely. Competence is judged against that specific task rather than held as a general status.
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<img src="https://buildoptix.co.uk/glossary/competent-person/diagram.svg" alt="competent person — diagram from BuildOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://buildoptix.co.uk/glossary/competent-person">What is a competent person?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://buildoptix.co.uk">BuildOptix</a>
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</figure>The test is practical. Someone competent to inspect a simple tower scaffold may not be competent to inspect a complex façade scaffold, and the same person may be competent for one and not the other on the same morning.
Cards and tickets are evidence of competence, not competence itself. They show training was completed; whether the person can actually do this task on this site is the question the appointment has to answer.
Because the duty to appoint sits with whoever needs the work done, recording the basis of the appointment matters. Qualifications, experience and any registration are what make the decision reviewable later.
What goes wrong in practice
- A card treated as proof of competence for tasks it does not cover.
- No record of why someone was considered competent, leaving nothing to show afterwards.
- Appointing on availability rather than on the specific demands of the task.