Personal competencies and the requirements of IEC 61508

IEC 61508 Part I states normative requirements for the competence of staff performing safety-related functions. Annex B of Part I is informative and provides guidance on what should be considered when assessing a person as competent to perform a particular safety-related role. The requirements and information provided in IEC 61508 lacks detail on how the requirements should be achieved in practice. As a consequence a study was undertaken under the joint supervision of the HSE, IEE and BCS to address this need. The results of the study have been published by the IEE titled "Safety, Competency and Commitment" This paper lists the requirements of IEC 61508 and describes the competency model, which was developed to meet the requirements of the standard. The opportunity is also taken to present the history on how the competency model was derived and to outline new developments.