Hazardous area and high voltage accredited auditors renewal application guide
Key focus areas for the Electrical Safety Office (ESO) during the hazardous area (HA) and high voltage (HV) reaccreditation process include:
- Continuous professional development (CPD) – ensuring accredited auditors enhance their skills, abilities and knowledge in a structured, practical and relevant way.
- Inspection activity – ensuring accredited auditors perform work under the Electrical Safety Regulation 2013, enabling ESO to monitor activity.
- Results of the assurance program – ensuring the quality of accredited auditors’ work. This may be assessed through ESO's external or internal desktop audits and site visits.
- Applying the Conditions of office – accredited auditors continue to meet their conditions of office.
1. Continuous professional development
Accredited auditors must demonstrate CPD for reaccreditation. This responsibility includes recording CPD.
When applying for re-accreditation, the applicant must demonstrate a minimum of 50 suitable CPD points over the previous accreditation period (three years).
For dual accreditation, once the accredited auditor has demonstrated the 50 CPD points required for one accreditation, the accredited auditor is only required to demonstrate 25 points for mandatory technical CPD for the second accreditation.
CPD is classified in three groups:
- mandatory technical (25 points minimum)
- mandatory non-technical (15 points minimum)
- non-mandatory (10 points maximum).
The required elements of CPD are shown in diagram 1 and a calculation demonstrating the application of the CPD system for accreditation renewal is in an example below.
Diagram 1 – Continuous professional development required elements model
- Training delivered by RTO (10 points/day or part thereof)
- Conferences delivered by a third party (10 points/day or part thereof)
- Workshops delivered by a third party (10 points/day or part thereof)
- Webinars delivered by a third party (5 points per webinar)
- Standards committee meetings attended as member (10 points/day or part thereof)
- Standards refresher (i.e. AS/NZS 3000/ AS/NZS 60079) (10 points/day or part thereof)
- Attend third party industry presentations (innovation) (5 points maximum).
All the above must have:
- Significantly technical content related to accreditation.
- Objective evidence to substantiate attendance/achievement and technical content, e.g. statement of attendance, agenda.
- Be delivered by a third party.
- ESO forum attendance (maximum 10 points per renewal period)
- Auditing/inspection training (10 points per day or part thereof)
- Access to standards (maximum 5 points)
All the above must have:
1. Objective evidence to substantiate: attendance/achievement and technical content, e.g. statement of attendance, agenda.
- Auditor receives peer review of technical reports or training material (maximum 5 points)
- Industry presentations conducted by applicant (maximum 5 points)
- Contribute article to ESO newsletters (maximum 5 points)
- Professional registrations (maximum 5 points)
- Delivery of training (relevant to accreditation) (maximum 5 points)
- Research/reading of technical material (maximum 5 points)
- Inhouse technical review/discussion of processes (improvements in accredited auditor processes) (maximum 5 points).
All the above must have relevance to appropriate accreditation.
CPD log
All CPD activities are recorded in a CPD log and submitted when reapplying for accreditation. An example of a CPD log is below:
The CPD log includes:
- CPD type
- start date
- end date
- activity topic
- provider
- location
- total hours
- learning outcome (as applicable to accreditation).
CPD items listed in the CPD log have:
- technical content related to accreditation
- detailed learning outcomes
- references to objective evidence that demonstrate claims, e.g. certified copy of course attendance, certificates, registrations for webinars, minutes of standards committees attended, agendas.
Note: Accredited auditors should retain all CPD evidence for a minimum of five years and make available to ESO at renewal or if required.
2. Inspection activity
Accredited auditors must be active in conducting inspections in Queensland under the Electrical Safety Act 2002. Non-compliance will influence accreditation renewal.
Accredited auditors must complete the accredited auditor inspection summary and provide this to ESO within 28 days of the final inspection. Accredited auditors are to complete an inspection log.
Inspection log
Example of inspection log:
3. Results of assurance program
The professionalisation of accredited auditors may be further assessed through the quality of the accredited auditor’s work. Results of external or internal desktop audits and site visits may be considered during the renewal process.
4. Conditions of office
Accredited auditors must continue to meet all their conditions of office. For example, insurance requirements and submitting inspection summaries to ESO within 28 days of the inspection.
Refer to the conditions of office.
Example - Accreditation renewal and CPD points calculation
Mic is an accredited auditor responsible for inspecting electrical work and confirming the electrical installation, to the extent it is affected by the electrical work, has been tested to ensure it is electrically safe and complies with the requirements of the wiring rules and any other standard applying under the Electrical Safety Regulation 2013.
He must demonstrate a minimum of 50 suitable CPD points over his previous accreditation period (refer diagram 1) when applying for re-accreditation.
Mic’s situation
Mic’s CPD activities since his last renewal include two conferences, a webinar course and reading technical journals.
Mandatory technical = 20 points currently obtained (25 points minimum required)
The conferences contained technical content directly relevant to his accreditation. He has a receipt for his attendance which also includes the attendance dates and subject matter. In total, attendance at these conferences total 12 hours (1.5 days) for which Mic is allocated 15 CPD points.
Mic didn’t receive a receipt for his attendance at the webinar, but he does have a calendar invite, registration details and notes he took during the webinar to support his claim. The webinar went for two hours, for which Mic is allocated 5 CPD points.
Mic has a shortfall for mandatory technical
Mandatory non-technical = 0 points currently obtained (15 points minimum required)
Mic has met the point required for mandatory non-technical
Non-mandatory = 10 points currently obtained (10 points maximum required)
Mic spent 10 hours reading technical journals which has credited him with 5 CPD points.
Mic can also claim his professional registrations (relevant to his accreditation), for which he is allocated another 5 CPD points.
Mic has additional CPD items he would like to claim under the non-mandatory classification. These include peer reviews he received on his technical reports and an article he contributed to the ESO newsletter. Mic cannot claim any of these CPD items because he has already received the maximum of 10 points for the non-mandatory CPD classification.
Mic’s total of 30 CPD points (20+0+10) is well short of the 50 points required. Mic has also not demonstrated the minimum 25 points required for mandatory technical and the minimum 15 points required for mandatory non-technical.
Making up the shortfall
Mic must make up the shortfall for mandatory technical (minimum 25 points) and mandatory non-technical (minimum 15 points).
Mic reviews his CPD records and finds that he attended several technical product information sessions relevant to his accreditation, which makes up the extra 5 points required for the mandatory technical component of his required CPD points. This takes Mic’s tally to 25 points for mandatory technical.
For mandatory non-technical, Mic needs 15 points minimum. He notes that attendance at ESO accredited auditor forums provides a maximum of 10 points for each accreditation period. Mic also has access to relevant standards, for which he is allocated 5 CPD points. This takes his tally to 15 CPD points for mandatory non-technical, which meets the requirements. Mic now has the required CPD to make up the 50 points:
- Mandatory technical (25 points)
- Mandatory non-technical (15 points)
- Non-mandatory (10 points)
Total = 50 points
Recording the CPD
Mic records his CPD to demonstrate he has achieved the required CPD points as part of his renewal application using the ESO template provided in the operational requirements document (PDF, 0.5 MB), re-badging it with his own banner.
Attach an inspections log
Mic also includes a log of all the inspections he conducted in his application.