How to appoint the right competent person for your business

A competent person is responsible for giving your working practices, premises and equipment a thorough inspection to make sure that your workplace is confidently meeting its Health & Safety responsibilities.

The overall responsibility for managing Health & Safety in a business will always fall on the business owner, a competent person can’t take that responsibility from you. But what they can do is give you advice and help, from a place of knowledge and experience, to make sure that you’re getting everything right.

The kind of tasks a competent person can carry out include:

• Keeping up to date with legislation and regulations and making sure your business does what it needs to do to comply with any changes
• Regularly inspect your premises for risks and hazard
• Help you to complete robust risk assessments, and keep them updated over time
• Work with you to put proper control measures for any risks and hazards you find in your risk assessments
• Assisting you in engaging your people with your Health & Safety policy – from communicating your stance to arranging necessary training.

It’s a list of big and important tasks, so when it comes to working with a competent person for your business, it’s important that you choose someone who really knows what they’re doing.

There aren’t any specific qualifications a competent person needs to have according to the law. However, as this is a crucially important role when it comes to your business complying with Health & Safety law, it’s definitely worth working with someone who had a good understanding of your business, how it works and what the inherent risks and hazards are.

There are some qualities we’d advise you look out for when appointing a competent person that will make your decision a bit easier to make. They are:

• Their attitude – you want someone who takes workplace Health & Safety seriously and has a keen eye for spotting risks. Also, consider how adept they’d be at getting your people engaged with your Health & Safety practices.
• Their experience – while your competent person doesn’t need any formal qualifications, they still need to be experienced and trained enough that they can fulfil the role, according to the Health & Safety Executive.
• Their competence – ideally, you’ll choose someone who has fulfilled a similar role before. A solid understanding of Health & Safety law is a huge benefit, as well as being able to track updates so your business continues to comply with any changes in regulations.

If you’d like to hear more on our top tips on what to look for in a competent person for your business, you can watch our video here.