Elements and Performance Criteria

Context
Management systems include (but are not limited to):
· evacuation
· emergency operations structure
· communications
· information management
· documentation and reporting requirements
· resource management
· training
· audit and review system
· financial management

Documents and evidence may include:
· electronic databases
· videos
· photographs
· written information/records
· training and learning programs

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
Consistent performance should be demonstrated. In particular look to see that competence in this unit reflects successful assessment in the critical aspects of:
· safe conduct of audit and review
· identification of benchmarks for audit and review
· development of methodologies for effective audit and review
· compliance with prescribed methodologies for audit and review
· evaluation of documents and evidence
· demonstrated understanding of the value of accuracy, attention to detail and impartiality
· information gathering, analysis and communication

These aspects may be best assessed using a range of scenarios/case studies/what ifs as the stimulus with a walk through forming part of the response. These assessment activities should include a range of problems, including new, unusual and improbable situations which may have been generated from the past incident history of the plant, incidents on similar plants around the world, hazard analysis activities and similar sources.

Resource implications
Assessment will require (1) access to an accurately simulated 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 and a bank of questions to probe the reasoning behind the observable actions will likewise be required.

Other assessment advice
It may be appropriate to assess this unit concurrently with other relevant units.

Essential knowledge
The knowledge referred to in the evidence guide for this Unit includes:
· relevant legislation
· relevant company policy management systems/procedures relating to incident preparedness and response
· company requirements in relation to audit and review procedures
· hazard identification and control
· occupational health and safety requirements
· risk management principles and techniques
· incident containment tactics

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:
· audit methods fail to provide sufficient qualitative and quantitative data
· audits fail to identify key system failures
· actions arising from audits do not translate into improvements in the system
· relationships between incident response partner organisations do not function as intended