Competency Accord

With the increasing challenges faced by the Power Sector in attempting to achieve an efficient, safe and flexible workforce, the National Skills Academy for Power is responsible for facilitating and developing an approach that provides a visible and transparent competency accord of sector employees. The Skills Academy has achieved an agreement amongst employers and stakeholders, securing their time and resources, to develop a common competence approach to improve the governance of the competency assessment.

The competency accord is designed to enhance the safety, health, environmental and security (SHES) performance of businesses within the Power Sector, whilst introducing efficiencies and cost reduction in the recruitment and movement of resource. Ensuring a competent workforce is paramount to the sector and there is a long history of support for competence-based qualifications. However, there is currently no universally accepted skills recognition or registration scheme to underpin this commitment. This means that in some sub sectors, as workers move between contracts and/ or employers, they are frequently subjected to an assessment and/ or additional training. 

The work being done under the competence accord is attempting to collaboratively develop and agree new specifications for competence which have common elements but also are flexible components to reflect company specific needs without compromising the high standards of safety already within the industry.

The first specification for Access to Substations has been developed and agreed and will be ready for adoption by employers in Spring 2012.

If you would like further information or have any questions about the Competency Accord please email enquiries@power.nsacademy.co.uk