Professional competence standards and frameworks in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Competence frameworks and standards are increasingly used by professions in the UK, driven by pressures for professional accountability, and particularly by the trend towards assessing practice before fully-qualified status is granted. A review of 40 UK frameworks indicated that most are concerned primarily with the ability to undertake work activities and roles to an appropriate standard: i.e. they reflect a predominantly external or activity-based approach to competence. The better frameworks recognise that competence standards cannot provide prescriptions for practice, reflecting the need for practitioners to act intelligently and ethically, and to make judgements in complex and unpredictable situations. They also support valid, robust and consistent assessment, and are capable of being adopted in different practice contexts while remaining sufficiently precise. The overall standard of competence frameworks is, however, variable, with some being little more than adapted course curricula or simple lists of activities that rely on a high level of tacit agreement about what is needed in practice. The ‘project’ of developing professional competence frameworks is a work in progress, with much to be learned from the best examples of the type.