How I Use the Competent Persons Template with Customers in Pilla
Competent person is one of those legal phrases that sounds straightforward until you try to pin it down. I've sat in meetings where the business owner points at the most senior manager in the room and says "that's our competent person." No assessment. No documented appointment. No consideration of whether that person has any health and safety training at all. They just happened to be in charge.
The gap I see most often is not a missing appointment. It's a missing structure around that appointment. Someone gets the title, but nobody allocates them time, nobody sends them on a course, and six months later they still can't tell you what RIDDOR stands for. That's what this article covers. I'll explain what the law actually requires, give you a template you can edit for your own operation, and walk through the bits that matter when an HSE inspector asks to see your arrangements.
Key Takeaways
- What is a competent person in health and safety? A competent person is someone with sufficient training, experience, or knowledge to help an organisation meet its health and safety duties. They can be appointed internally or brought in from outside
- Why do you need a competent persons policy? Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to appoint one or more competent persons. An HSE inspector will check that appointments are documented and that those people are actually doing the work
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to appoint one or more competent persons to assist in undertaking the measures needed to comply with health and safety law. That's the legal baseline. The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 sets out the general duties on employers, and the 1999 Regulations fill in the detail on how you're supposed to meet them, including through competent person appointments.
Competence in this context is not a single qualification. It's a combination of training, experience, knowledge, and in some cases formal qualifications that allow someone to do the specific job they've been given. A competent person for fire safety might need different skills from a competent person for manual handling. The role defines the requirement, not the other way round.
You can appoint internally or externally. Most businesses I work with start with internal appointments, and that's usually the right call. Your own people understand the operation, the layout, the culture, the things that actually go wrong on a Friday afternoon. External consultants have a place, particularly for specialist areas like asbestos surveys or noise assessments, but they should supplement internal competence, not replace it.
The bit that trips people up is resource allocation. Appointing someone is step one. Giving them the time, training, and authority to actually do the job is step two, and it's where most arrangements fall apart. I reviewed one business where the appointed competent person was also the head chef, the duty manager, and the fire warden. He had no allocated time for any of it. His competent person folder was empty. An HSE inspector would have had a field day.
What does an HSE inspector look for? Written records of who's been appointed, what they're responsible for, and evidence that they're actually doing the work. That means training records, competency assessments, and proof that time and resources have been allocated. If you can't show that your competent person has received any training or done anything since being appointed, the appointment is meaningless on paper and in practice.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a competent persons template in Pilla covering the legal requirement under Regulation 7, internal and external appointments, competency assessment, development pathways, and resource allocation. It gives you a structured starting point, but you should edit it to reflect your own operation.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Health and Safety System". Use the same tag across all of your health and safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through every section. Where it says "Company Name", replace it with your business name. Where it references external advisors, update it to reflect who you actually use. If you don't use external competent persons, say so and explain why. The HSE inspector wants to see that your policy reflects your operation, not that you've copied a generic document.
21. Competent Persons
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended in 2003 and 2006) – requires that an organisation employs internally or externally competent persons who have sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to assist you with your health & safety responsibilities.
Company Name understands that unless we employ competent staff and management team, we will not achieve compliance with legislative requirements or food hygiene rating scheme.
Company Name have appointed competent persons to assist in undertaking the measures needed to be taken to ensure compliance with the requirements and prohibitions imposed under current, relevant statutory laws and regulations.
Company Name recognise that a competent person must have the knowledge and experience to succeed in the role given by the organisation regardless of whether that is at senior or junior levels. Those recognised by *Responsible Persons as having the experience and capability but may not have the knowledge and qualifications will not be discounted from progressing within Company Name. Sufficient time and resources will be allocated to the competent persons to allow them to properly undertake the roles assigned, this means providing the training, instruction, and information necessary to succeed.
External Competent advisors: Foursquare Group have been selected to assist us with food safety, health & safety and employment law. We understand that we can arrange technical face one to one assistance, should there be a requirement. However, the competence from Foursquare comes with the provision of our management systems and diaries, used for guidance and recording our working practices.
*Responsible Persons are identified on the House Responsibility Chart.
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The appointment section is the core of the whole policy. I'd want to see named individuals or roles that have been designated as competent persons, with a clear description of what they're responsible for. Vague language like "assist with health and safety" is not enough. Spell out the specific duties: conducting risk assessments, managing fire safety arrangements, overseeing COSHH compliance, whatever applies to your business.
The development pathway matters. The template covers the principle that people with experience and capability but without formal qualifications should not be discounted. I'd want to see that turned into something concrete: what training have you planned, what courses are booked, what's the timeline. If you've appointed someone who's still building their competence, document the plan to get them there.
Resource allocation is where I spend the most time when reviewing these policies. The template states that sufficient time and resources will be allocated. I'd want to see what that looks like in practice. How many hours per week? Is it protected time or just squeezed in between other duties?
Common mistakes I see:
The most common mistake is treating the appointment as a paper exercise. Someone's name goes on a form, the form goes in a folder, and nothing changes. The template covers the requirement to provide training, instruction, and information. If your competent person hasn't received any of those things since being appointed, the policy contradicts reality.
I regularly see businesses appoint based on seniority rather than competence. The general manager gets the role because they're senior, not because they have any health and safety knowledge. The template is clear that competence requires knowledge and experience to succeed in the role. Assess the person against the actual requirements, not their job title.
The external competent advisor section often gets left as a generic placeholder. If you use an external provider, name them and describe what they provide. If you don't, remove that section. An HSE inspector can tell the difference between a policy that reflects your arrangements and one that's been left half-finished.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.