Further to the July 1988 Piper Alpha Offshore disaster in the North Sea, the investigation report led by Lord Cullen, recommended that employers ensure the Competency of Personnel for all workers that they employ.
In the UK, the Electricity at Work Regulations (1989) made this a mandatory requirement and increased the standards necessary to ensure the competency of personnel, thereby increasing workplace safety in potentially hazardous environments. These new legal requirements brought about the need to provide a competency scheme that would both assess the underpinning knowledge (theory) and the competency validation (practical assessment) of individuals under one scheme and the associated Core Competency Certificate that would be obtained by successful practitioners.
1994 saw the birth of the first CompEx Centre at Aberdeen College in Aberdeen, Scotland. Continuous development of the CompEx Scheme has led to 14 Licensed CompEx Centres in the UK and 9 International Centres (see Training Centres Page). Since it’s inception, CompEx has certificated over 27,000 candidates, all contributing to increased safety awareness in the workplace, with each certificate being valid up to a period of 5 years, depending on the changes to International, European and British Standards.
CompEx is a competency validation initiative, jointly developed by the Engineering Equipment and Materials Users’ Association (EEMUA) and JTL, the UK's leading work based learning provider. Based upon the IEC International Standards, primarily BS EN 60079 - 10; 14 & 17, the scheme certification body JTL, is now accredited by UKAS to ISO/IEC 17024 : 2003 to provide certification of persons. The IEC Standards are at the heart of all CompEx delivery to ensure international conformity and harmonisation of safe working practices. The CompEx Scheme Governance secures impartiality by representation from EEMUA members as Major Users in the Oil & Gas and Chemical industry, JTL as the Certification Body, Oil & Gas UK Offshore Users Association, APEA Association for Petroleum and Explosives Administration, the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA), Unite the Union and is supported the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
There is now an international network of licensed CompEx centres that provide CompEx training and assessment leading to core competency validation certification across the globe, from Aberdeen down to Sasolburg, South Africa and from Houston across to Singapore. No matter where you are in the world, there is always a centre within reach. The course includes all training and assessments and upon success, candidates will receive a CompEx Certificate of Core Competency.