Over the last year, a dedicated team of volunteers has been reviewing the CIEEM Competency Framework. Their brief was to use their experience and expertise to provide advice and guidance on potential changes to ensure the Competency Framework is fit for purpose and to make final recommendations on any changes.
The working group has reached the point where they would welcome feedback on the proposed changes. The good news is that this has been an evolution rather than a revolution. It is suggested that the Framework does not need to change very much but there has been some tightening up of wording and removal of repetition to improve clarity. The working group has also produced a short glossary of key terms to aid interpretation of the Framework and ensure a shared understanding between applicants and assessors.
We now invite you to provide your feedback on the proposed changes to the competencies and descriptors using the forms below. There are three documents to review:
- The proposed Glossary of key terms
- A summary of the technical competencies and descriptors, and
- A summary of the transferable competencies and descriptors.
In the two summary documents we have shown the current wording for each competency and the proposed new wording with any changes highlighted in yellow. In many instances, there is very little change.
We are proposing to remove A1: Strategic Environmental Assessment from the Framework because it is so rarely used as a competency example in membership or chartership applications.
We are also proposing to add a new competency, A6: Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and we ask for your feedback on whether this is needed because it is a relatively new area of work or whether the competencies required to deliver BNG are already covered by the existing competencies.
We are also proposing to expand the compulsory PC1: Professional Conduct competency to include personal commitment to environmental responsibility.
Aside from these specific questions, we ask you to suggest alternative wording to that proposed. There is also space at the end to comment on any gaps in the Competency Framework.
Finally, there is the opportunity to let us know if you would like to be involved in reviewing the detail of the new Framework – i.e. what each of the competencies look like at Basic, Capable, Accomplished and Authoritative level. Later in the Autumn, we will be organising some round table discussions to look at the Framework through a variety of lenses such as different employment sectors and there will be the opportunity to be involved in some of those roundtable discussions. We would also like to hear from members who are neurodivergent, have physical disabilities and/or are desk-based ecologists and environmental managers who feel able to share their perspectives.
For those of you who would like to see the detail of how the competencies and descriptors are interpreted at each different competency level (Basic, Capable, Accomplished and Authoritative) the full frameworks are below: