ICS Accreditation
Can you Accredit it?
The General Manager and Ian Colley from the Management Committee recently met with HSE at Rose Court, London to discuss issues around competency and competence assessment. ICS uses peer group assessment to assess the competence of applicants for membership. This is a common and widely accepted method of assessment amongst the professional bodies when looking at their member's specialisms, and (mainly in response to market demand for specialists) these bodies accredit their members with the specialism.
We are keen to associate our methods with other professional member organisations - despite the fact that there is no direct academic qualification as a CDM Co-ordinator, leading to a "ticket to practice". The developments we have introduced over the last year mean that ICS can now say that we run an Accreditation scheme for our members. We draw a distinction between third party accreditation and self-assessment, or self certification. These latter definitions apply to sections of the profession in which we find ourselves. It is a profession unwittingly created by CDM2004 when, out of the new regulations there emerged the stand alone Planning Supervisor. This was not the intention (certainly not the intention of the Directive). What was expected was that one of the professions would take on the role. In fact, one profession in particular - architects - was seen as an ideal candidate. This didn't happen. Many professional designers and constructors took up the PS role, but many more saw the potential to create a new opportunity by claiming to be able to provide PS services. CDM2007 identified the problems with this and set out some guidance for competency assessment and this is described in the ACoP, particularly Appendix 4. In the Spring NewsFile, we identified the concerns we have about this.
There are still a large proportion of CDM-Cs who are self proclaimed as competent, and many of them will have attended training and be very good at it. However, if there are concerns about standards of competency (and HSE are concerned) then surely the answer is third party accreditation. Our members will be pleased to know that HSE recognises our Accreditation Scheme and we are hoping that sooner or later the informed marketplace will look to accreditation when appointing a CDM-C. The marketplace looks for accreditation in just about everything else after all.
ICS has created an Accreditation Scheme framework and Members will be able to access Member Guidance documentation on the website later in 2010. We have introduced a Code of Conduct and a complaints and appeals procedure. These are designed to provide clients and customers of our Members with reassurance that ICS Members operate within a set of standards of conduct and that ICS as an third party accreditation and membership body will work in the public interest and to ensure that good standards within the CDM-C profession are consistently maintained for the benefit of the public and CDM Co-ordinators alike.
The following is a summary of the basis for our Accreditation Scheme:
- Setting out the standards and qualifications needed to become a competent CDM-C
- Keeping a Register of competent CDM Co-ordinators accessible by the public
- Ensuring that our Members meet our standards for conduct and practice
- Investigating complaints about an ICS Member's conduct or competence