Competency Schemes

There is an increasing amount of paperwork required offshore, supposedly to increase safety etc., but which can sometimes end up just being a tick in the box on a training matrix for a particular project. You can often end up having to watch several training videos, reading piles of project safety manuals, and attending overly long briefings with numerous boring Powerpoint slides dreamt up by someone in the office, all whilst trying to mobilise on a job.

A lot of it is duplicating stuff done elsewhere for other clients projects. Sometimes you don’t get to complete all of the required ‘training’ until almost finished the job, as a little thing called work and the job gets in the way. Spending 3 hours in front of a computer doing a PTW ‘course’ doesn’t necessarily make you any safer out on deck.

It is not just in the offshore industry that this happens, many other industries, certainly in UK/Norway/Europe, have also adopted the ass-covering blanket of using mountains of ‘paper safety’ for having discharged their responsibility for safety training and assuring competencies. Much of it is to do with fear of litigation, and companies being more aware of the potential bad press that follows accidents, and the damage that this can do to business. They literally can not afford to have accidents and fatalities occuring.

Much of it is also driven by employment and health & safety legislation in the host country that has to be complied with.

There’s nothing wrong in relevant, succint and effective training, pre-job briefings and emergency procedures etc that can actually make the job go better and safer.

It’s also not a bad thing to have people be able to prove that they are in fact competent and safe, but I’m not convinced that the scheme used at present is all that effective at doing so.

After all, you would not be allowed to go offshore in many locations as e.g. an Electrician, Crane Driver, Medic or DP Operator etc. without having some recognised proof of training and competence, but for many years before the current imperfect IMCA or companies in-house schemes, NVQ’s etc there was no similar structure in place for the ROV industry.

Similarly, you would probably want the person fixing your aeroplane, train, gas boiler or teeth to be proven competent to some nationally agreed standard, not just on the arbitrary say so of some manager.

I have worked offshore with some very competent guys who have few formal qualifications, but also with some downright dangerous ones who may know a fair bit about fixing ROV’s, ROV ops and getting the job done, but who don’t even seem to understand such things as basic electrical safety etc.

OK, it can be a pain with all the legislation and paperwork etc., but like it or not, ensuring people are ‘trained and competent’ is a fact of life when working in certain geographical areas now. It’s the law, so get used to it, try and influence the process, or go elsewhere with your safety flip flops and shorts. I personally don’t want to work alongside people in some s**thole country populated with people who can’t be arsed with their own or your safety, and devolve all personal responsibilty to fate or ‘insch Allah’ (or however you spell it), and with guys who have gone native and seem to adopt the local attitude of life is cheap.

Saying that, I’d rather work alongside someone who has a good dose of common sense and practicality, than someone with numerous bits of paper coming out of his backside.

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