As part of IMCA's guidance on competence assurance and assessment, each company should have internal auditing arrangements in place to ensure that all assesors apply the criteria in a consistent and appropriate manner. The scheme employs a range of criteria, including academic and vocational qualifications, demonstrable experience, technical skills and appropriate training; and requires that all safety-critical personnel demonstrate that they have the required competencies for their specific job function as set out in the scheme. This is usually done by workplace assessors. To carry out assessments successfully, both the person being assessed and the assessor need to be fully familiar with the assessment process.

The following points are normally considered to be good practice in conducting assessments:

• The assessor should provide a list showing both the elements of competence being assessed and the criteria against which they are to be assessed
• The person being assessed should be able to demonstrate on a number of separate occasions that he/she can satisfactorily perform the task being assessed
• The person being assessed should be observed demonstrating the attainment of the competence by the assessor
• The assessor should gather and record evidence (e.g. noting date and time observing candidate performing task)
• The person being assessed should receive prompt, accurate and constructive feedback on any assessment conducted.

Assessors should be competent to carry out assessments of the personnel being assessed. The assessor should be a supervisor or manager with the necessary knowledge and experience to be able to judge competence being assessed, and should also have been provided with suitable training on assessment.

IMCA does not approve or formally recognise any particular assessor training course or programme. The type of training given to an assessor is for each IMCA member to determine. However this document sets out, in a modular form, aspects which would normally be included in an assessor training programme. It is not intended to be used as a training document, rather it provides a checklist on topics the contractor should consider for inclusion in an assessor training programme which should be adapted for the workforce and the assessments to be undertaken. The aspects have been separated out under three different headings to help individual to tailor their training programmes in order to meet their specific needs.

Related information:

• Competence assurance and assessment