Common Industry Competencies

Standardised industry safety training requirements.

Standardisation

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The Common Industry Competencies (CIC) Specification (Rev 7) defines consistent industry requirements for training courses, competency and validity periods. It removes confusion that has the potential to hurt people, while providing cost efficiency by eliminating duplication in training requirements.

The CIC Specification (Rev 7), released June 2023 now includes multiple pathways to renewing the competence validity period, as well as the option to re-take the full Unit of Competence.

Changes to CIC Specification (Rev 7) include a competence cycle including performance standard, skills maintenance and verification of competence to the specification along with the supporting definitions and governance to aid implementation.

The updated CIC Specification now has a Performance Standard for Work Safely at Height.  More Performance Standards will be added in due course.

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It is now possible for people who are consistently using the competence to take either a Skills Maintenance Refresher or a Verification of Competence one-to-one assessment (see CIC Specification for detail).  This reduces the training time requirement whilst ensuring that the critical skills needed are properly assessed.

Section 5 of the CIC Specifciation defines the Industry competence requirements, validity periods  and competence renewal pathways (where applicable) for individual competencies covered by the specification.

The Specification also requires that CIC records be maintained. These records shall be:

  • subject to verification to confirm that they are valid, &
  • stored in a secure manner and in accordance with relevant Privacy legislation.

History and Continuous Development of the Common Industry Competency Specification

The general concept of “industry competency” focuses on the ability to perform particular tasks to the standard of performance expected in the workplace.

In 2015 it was recognised that Operators and Contractors within our industry had established similar but not identical requirements for safety training and competence.  These inconsistencies in  requirements resulted in confusion and inefficiencies, as different operators could not allow access to their sites unless their own specific competency requirements were met.

The Competence and Behaviour Working Group established a team to address the issue, and the first release of the Common Industry Competencies Specification was released in 2016.   It has been revised and extended each year and is now at Rev 7.

Use of this Specification removed confusion, eliminated duplication in training requirements, and improved cost efficiency. It also has improved worker mobility, allowed Operators and Contractors to better target their training spend, enabled faster mobilisation of workers to site and increased confidence around the competency of the industry’s workforce.

A set of supporting documents and FAQ’s to assist with implementing the CIC Specification in your organisation can be found here.

Coming Next

The Competence and Behaviour Working Group will continue to develop the CIC Specification, concentrating in 2023 and 2024 on increasing the number of competencies that have multiple pathways to renewing their validity periods.

Related Links

Click on the following links for a set of supporting documents and FAQs to assist with implementing the CIC Specification in your organisation.

For More Information

[email protected]

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