Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to appoint one or more competent persons to help them comply with health and safety law. It is one of the few duties that applies to every business with employees, from a two-person workshop to a multi-site group. This page explains what the regulation asks for, who counts as competent, when you can do it yourself and what to expect from an external competent person service.
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A named Chartered consultant as your competent person
Working across the Midlands, the North West, Yorkshire and North Wales
Professional indemnity insured
The duty, explained
Regulation 7(1) requires the employer to appoint one or more competent persons to assist in undertaking the measures needed to comply with health and safety law. Regulation 7(5) says a person is competent where they have sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to assist properly. Regulation 7(8) adds a point that is often missed: where there is a competent person in the employer's own employment, that person should be appointed in preference to someone from outside. The law would rather you grow the competence in-house, and turns to an external appointment where you cannot. The Health and Safety Executive's guidance for small businesses puts it plainly: for a low-risk business you may be able to do it yourself, and you should get help where the risks are beyond what you understand.
Someone with the training, experience and knowledge to recognise the hazards in your particular work and to know what the law expects you to do about them. There is no licence and no single qualification. In practice competence is shown by a recognised health and safety qualification (a NEBOSH certificate or diploma, a degree, or Chartered membership of IOSH), by experience in a comparable workplace and by keeping up to date. The HSE and the professional bodies run the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR) so that employers can check an external adviser's credentials; registration requires Chartered or equivalent membership and professional indemnity insurance.
Often, yes, and for low-risk work the regulation prefers it. A small office or shop where the risks are slips, trips, display screen work and the odd ladder can usually be covered by an owner or manager who has done a short course and reads the HSE guidance. The bar rises with the work. Machinery under PUWER, flammable or explosive substances under DSEAR, work at height, confined spaces, lifting operations, contractors on site and anything the HSE classes as higher hazard need someone who has assessed that kind of risk before. The honest test is whether the person could stand in front of an inspector after an incident and explain why the controls were adequate. If the answer is "I think so", get help.
When nobody in the business meets the test above for the risks you carry. When a client, a tender or an accreditation scheme asks for the name and credentials of your competent person and you have nothing to put on the form. When you have had a near miss, an incident or an inspection and are no longer sure your arrangements would stand up. And when the owner has been the competent person by default for years and knows it is not getting the attention it needs. A small family retailer with a council Improvement Notice had nobody in the business who could be named as competent person when the council asked. The monthly arrangement gave them one before the compliance date.
A named, qualified individual recorded on your health and safety policy and documentation as your competent person, who can be produced on request by an insurer, a client or an inspector. Advice by phone and email when something comes up. A review of your policy and your risk assessments so that what is written matches what happens on site. A visit to the premises at an agreed frequency, because competence cannot be exercised from a desk. And written outputs that your supervisors can follow. What it should not be is a certificate and a phone number: some firms sell a competent person certificate for around £40 a month with nobody ever visiting, and if a name on a form is all a contract asks of you it will do that job, but it is not what Regulation 7 has in mind.
York Green provides the competent person role as part of outsourced health and safety support, from £199 a month plus VAT for a micro business, with the tiers, inclusions and Onboarding set out on that page. The person recorded is a Chartered consultant and the agreement is rolling monthly with thirty days' notice. It is one of the services in our health and safety consultancy.
Regulation 7 is enforced by the HSE and local authorities. In practice the failure shows up after something else has gone wrong: an inspector asks who advised on the risk assessment and there is no answer, or an insurer asks the same question after a claim. Improvement notices and prosecutions for the underlying failure follow the incident; the missing competent person is what makes them hard to answer.
How the work is delivered
Support is delivered by professionally qualified consultants working to a single documented method, with technical sign-off held centrally.
The same consultant, who learns your operation, rather than whoever picks up the phone that day.
Documentation is reviewed and signed off by a Chartered practitioner before it reaches you.
Policies and assessments your supervisors can follow, not legalese that sits in a folder.
Manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, trades and construction, and office-based businesses.
What this support is built on
Consultants are professionally qualified and every deliverable is technically reviewed before it reaches you. Registrations and CVs are available on request.
Proof
Straight answers
No. The regulation asks for competence proportionate to the risk, not a title. For higher-hazard work a Chartered practitioner or someone on the OSHCR register is the sensible standard, and it is what insurers and large clients tend to ask for.
Yes, and it usually makes sense. The same person who holds the role carries out or signs off the fire risk assessment, DSEAR assessment and PUWER assessment, so the documentation hangs together.
Yes. The duty applies to every employer. With fewer than five employees you do not have to write the policy down, but you still have to have access to competent advice.
The agreement is rolling monthly with thirty days' notice. If you build the competence in-house later, you can appoint your own person and stop, which is what Regulation 7(8) would prefer anyway.
Next step
Five boxes, about a minute. Every enquiry is read by a consultant rather than a call centre, and we come back to you within one working day. If the honest answer is that you need one assessment rather than a monthly arrangement, we will tell you that instead of selling you a package.
Would rather talk now? Call 07949 084819 or email enquiries@yorkgreen.uk.
We reply within one working day.
