On this page: What does competency mean? | Competence of rail safety workers | Assessment of competence | Records of competence and training
Accredited rail operators are responsible for ensuring that rail safety workers are competent to carry out their work.
Part 5, Division 3 of the Rail Safety Regulations 2006 refers specifically to worker competence:
- competence of rail safety workers
- assessment of rail safety worker competence
- records of competence and training
What does competency mean?
In the context of the Rail Safety Act 2006, competence of a rail safety worker is measured by whether the rail safety worker has had sufficient training and experience, acquired knowledge, and skills to enable the rail safety worker to perform a specified task correctly.Competence of rail safety workers
If you are an accredited rail operator, it is important that you ensure - so far as is reasonably practicable - that a person does not carry out rail safety work for your operations unless the person is competent to do so.
In addition, you must ensure that if a person is undertaking training in an area of rail safety work that there is a competent person supervising that worker.
Assessment of competence
Where possible, you must assess the competence of each rail safety worker, by reference to:
- any relevant training that is recognised under the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF), or
- if there is no relevant training under the AQTF, a level of competence that has been specified by the Safety Director of PTSV and published in the Victoria Government Gazette.
If neither of the above apply, you are still required to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that a person who carries out rail safety work is competent to do so, and this involves assessing competence.
If you assess a rail safety worker as not demonstrating a required competence to carry out rail safety work of a particular class you must ensure that:
- the rail safety worker undertakes an appropriate course of training to achieve that competence, or
- the competence is attained by another means other than training.
Records of competence and training
You must ensure that you prepare and maintain records, including records of the following:
- training undertaken by each rail safety worker carrying out rail safety work for the operator
- qualifications of each rail safety worker (including details about the training)
- name of the organisation conducting the training
- results of any assessment of competence of the rail safety worker
- name and qualification of the person who assessed the rail safety worker.