What does the new EIA directive mean by 'competent expert'?
The new environmental impact assessment (EIA) Directive, due to be transposed into domestic regulation by spring 2017, requires competent experts to undertake an EIA. It also instructs competent authorities to use experts in the appraisal of EIAs.
When does someone move from being competent to being an expert? Or a competent expert? Can you have an incompetent expert? Many people who have looked to answer these questions have taken an academic, theoretical or psychological basis.
I am more interested in the pragmatic, real-world issues of defining experts: for the purpose of standards and accreditation, for roles, such as expert witness, and for procurement. But if you need expert advice, you have no way of defining or verifying expertise and could end up paying for advice but not from an expert.
In the UK, there is a long tradition of chartership, whether it is as a chartered engineer or chartered environmentalist. Chartership in many ways seeks to provide that formal external verification that you are at a particular level of experience and competence. In this it succeeds.
However, chartership is broad in purpose and nature. There are as many types of engineering specialisms as there are environmental professions. You would not want a mechanical and electrical engineer advising on your structural designs nor an ornithologist undertaking your air quality assessment.
Chartership is an indication of competence and experience in a general field, but it does not provide a guide to identifying experts.
IEMA’s EIA practitioner register – bit.ly/1SnsAHd for details – does this for impact assessment professionals at least. It provides a true guide to individual expertise and competence and could be used by practitioners to show they meet the test of competent expert as set out in the directive.
The IEMA IA Network, which I chair, will shortly host a webinar on expert competence and the new Directive.
