Caledonia Competence: Proof of Competence Scheme

An Aberdeen based provider of Competence Assurance services is supporting freelance personnel with a Proof of Competence scheme.

Caledonia Competence are providing competence assessment, verification and certification services to ROV personnel who can not access those provided by ROV Contractors.

Gavin Smith, Managing Director of Caledonia Competence explained, "Since I established the company in 2015, I was often asked by freelancers if we had plans to offer a competence scheme for individuals who could not access one run by an ROV Contractor. When IMCA finalised the Freelance e-Portfolio mechanism, we felt it was the right time to put our Proof of Competence (POC) scheme into place."

The scheme is split into three stages – enrolment, evidence gathering then final assessment and verification by Caledonia Competence’s Assessor and Verifiers.

Feedback received from individuals who have been certified by Caledonia Competence include comments such as “The Assessor’s questions were well thought out and allowed me to feel more confident in my own abilities. The Video Call Interview with the Assessor was professional and enjoyable. I learnt a lot from the experience and felt like I was being mentored as well as being assessed.”

Rachael Spence, who co-ordinates the POC scheme, added, “We are always seeking to make improvements to the process. To that end, we

will shortly be offering POC Candidates the opportunity to use our ATTAIN Competence and Training system. ATTAIN is available both online and offline via mobile apps that are accessible in the Apple and Google Play Stores.”

The ATTAIN system is to be a key offering from Caledonia Competence going forward. Gavin Smith commented, “ATTAIN allows us to assist our clients who do not have a robust, easy to use portal for their people to complete Competence and Training activities. It links well with video conferencing tools, such as Zoom, which we use for our Virtual Competence Assessor Training and of course, we use it for e-learning modules that we develop for our clients. We already have clients who are using ATTAIN for their Competence Assessments and the feedback we receive is very positive.”