Elements and Performance Criteria

Context
This unit of competency covers the management of a crisis within the organisation that may include:
· fire, explosion
· loss of containment (e.g. gas leaks, spills)
· damage to facilities (e.g. accidents, crashes, aircraft)
· natural disasters (e.g. cyclones, wind, rain, earthquake, flood)
· other (e.g. riot, civil unrest, terrorism)
· threats to supply (e.g. raw materials interruption, energy or services supply).

Communications systems may include:
Any form of communication (e.g. direct, telephone, two-way radio, pager, computer, electronic mail, operating logs, intercoms).

Assessment of the crisis may include:
Any aspect which affects the management of the situation (e.g. type of incident, risk to life, property and environment, hazards, capability of assigned personnel, adequacy of allocated equipment, information gathered from existing plans/databases, forecasts, meteorological profiles).

Constraints that may impede the response to the crisis need to be considered and may include:
· legislation, organisation procedures
· resources (e.g. time, financial, personnel, organisational)
· prevailing weather, seasonal factors
· restrictions on duration of work or the conditions under which personnel may be employed
· sacred sites, other areas of environmental and cultural significance, wilderness areas, hazardous areas, other restricted areas

HSE
All operations to which this unit applies are subject to stringent Health, Safety and Environment requirements, which may be imposed through State or federal legislation, and these must not be compromised at any time. Where there is an apparent conflict between performance criteria and HSE requirements, the HSE requirements take precedence.

Relationship to Major Hazard Facility Legislation
· Organisations within the Chemical, Hydrocarbons and Oil Refining industries may find themselves falling under the provisions of various Major Hazard Facilities legislation. In developing this unit consideration has been given to the requirements of Sections 8 and 9 of the National Standard For The Control Of Major Hazard Facilities [NOHSC:1014(2002)] and the National Code Of Practice For The Control Of Major Hazard Facilities [NOHSC:2016(1996)].
· This unit will assist individuals to meet some of their obligations under the relevant State or Territory legislation. Responsibility for appropriate contextualisation and application of the unit to ensure compliance however, remains with the individual organisation.

Assessment context and methods
· Assessment for this unit of competency will be by way of simulation or observation under incident conditions. The unit will be assessed in as holistic a manner as is practical and may be integrated with the assessment of other relevant units of competency. Assessment will occur over a range of situations which can include a variety of incident circumstances.
· Simulations must, as closely as possible, approximate actual incident conditions and should be based on the actual facility. Assessments should include 'walk throughs' of the relevant competency components and may include the use of case studies/scenarios and role plays.
· This unit of competency requires a significant body of knowledge which will be assessed through questioning and the use of 'what if' scenarios both in the facility (during demonstration of normal operations and walk throughs of abnormal operations) and off the site.

Critical aspects
Competence must be demonstrated in the ability to recognise and analyse potential situations requiring action and then in implementing appropriate responsive action. The emphasis should be on the ability to deal effectively with the incident or to contribute effectively to the recovery from the incident.

Consistent performance should be demonstrated. In particular look to see that:
· the crisis is assessed adequately
· the appropriate crisis management plan is implemented
· contingency planning is practiced
· obtaining and recording of relevant information is adequate
· post crisis recovery is initiated
· the crisis is critically analysed to improve future performance

These assessment activities should include a range of problems, including new, unusual and improbable situations which may have been generated from past workplace incident history, incidents in similar workplaces around the world, hazard analysis activities and/or similar sources.

Resource implications
Assessment will require (1) access to an accurately simulated environment in the absence of an on-site incident environment, or (2) a suitable method of gathering evidence of responding ability over a range of situations. A bank of scenarios/case studies/what ifs will be required as will a bank of questions that will be used to probe the reasoning behind the observable actions.

Other assessment advice
In all facilities it may be appropriate to assess this unit concurrently with relevant units such as:
· PMAOMIR320 - Manage incident response information
· PMAOMIR344 - Develop Incident control strategies
· PMAOMIR512 - Develop incident control plans

Essential knowledge
Competence includes an understanding of the emergency response procedures its integral equipment to the level needed to coordinate the response and recognise and resolve problems. In particular it includes:
· crisis management plans
· crisis management principles
· contingency planning
· hazards (physical, regulatory and business) arising from typical crises

Competence also includes the ability to isolate the causes of problems within the incident response system and to be able to distinguish between causes of problems indicated by:
· inappropriate or lack of contingency planning
· lack of commitment by the organisation to training and incident response exercises
· deviations from standard operating procedures or incident response plans
· "loss" of personnel in either practices or incidents
· strategic failures in communications