Verification Of Competence (VoC)

Under Australian WHS legislation it is a requirement for PCBU’s (Person/s Conducting a Business or Undertaking) to ensure the competency of its workers to perform their tasks safely. Whilst a worker may have a Vocational Education and Training (VET) unit of competency and associated licence, this only proves that at the time of assessment the operator was competent. Unless the operator used their skills and knowledge regularly their competency may be reduced. The standards recommend that checking competency should be done based on how often the skill is being used or applied. However, in many sites around Australia a worker will not be deemed as current unless they have undertaken a VoC assessment within the past 24 months. We recommend competency assessments be undertaken every 24 months. This allows the worker to fill in knowledge gaps, brings the worker up-to-date with any changes to legislation, technology or best practice, and provides assurance to the PCBU that their work is current in their competency. Many VoC assessments fail to meet a standard that provides assurance about the skills of the operator as the VoC assessment is not controlled by the VET system. At QPTS we use the nationally recognised Unit of Competency as the basis for our VoC assessments, thus ensuring that the worker’s competence is assessed in line with the key elements of the unit.