Ask three people what makes someone competent to work with ammunition and you will often get three different answers: a qualification, a job title, or years served. None of those, on its own, satisfies the regulator. Under UK Defence rules competence is a demonstrable state, evidenced against a defined standard and kept current, and the burden of proof sits with the employing organisation.
This matters because the consequences of getting it wrong are not administrative. A person who is assumed competent, rather than shown to be, is a safety risk and an audit finding waiting to happen. The framework below is how that risk is managed.
A regulated obligation, not a course certificate
Two layers of law sit above any WOME task. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a general duty on employers to provide the information, instruction, training and supervision needed for safe work. The Explosives Regulations 2014 add specific duties for the manufacture and storage of explosives. Military activity then requires arrangements at least as good as the civil baseline, kept as low as reasonably practicable, a principle usually written as ALARP.
The employer has to satisfy the regulator, and ultimately the Secretary of State, that the people doing OME work can actually do it safely. Competence is therefore something an organisation must be able to prove on demand, with evidence that a named individual can perform a specific task to the required standard over time.
DSA 02.OME and DSA 03.OME: what versus how
The Defence Safety Authority publishes the ordnance, munitions and explosives safety regulations through the Defence Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives Safety Regulator (DOSR). Two publications are easy to confuse and are often cited the wrong way round.
DSA 02.OME contains the mandatory regulations. It states what must be achieved across acquisition, in-service management, ranges, major accident control and related activities. DSA 03.OME contains the Defence Codes of Practice and accepted methods, which describe how compliance can be demonstrated. The distinction is practical: a supplier who reports compliance with DSA 03.OME alone has described a method, not met the objective, because the regulatory requirement is compliance with DSA 02.OME.
What "competent" actually means: the KSA model
The WOME functional competence framework defines competence through knowledge, skills and attributes, a model often shortened to KSA, applied within a regulated structure. Knowledge is the underpinning theory. Skills are the applied techniques. Attributes are the behaviours and judgement a role demands under pressure. Competence is the point at which those elements come together in real performance, evidenced over time rather than claimed after a single assessment.
The framework works through profiles. A post profile describes the competence a given role requires. A personal skills profile records what a named individual has actually demonstrated. Training exists to close the gap between the two. National Occupational Standards for explosive substances and articles provide the external yardstick, so that a profile is measured against a recognised standard and not against local custom. Where the safety significance of a task is high, the person filling it must be a Suitably Qualified and Experienced Person, or SQEP, meaning their qualifications and demonstrated experience match the risk.
Where NATO quality assurance stops short
Suppliers to NATO programmes work to Allied Quality Assurance Publications, most commonly AQAP-2110, which is aligned to ISO 9001:2015. Clause 7.2 of that standard requires an organisation to determine the competence its work needs and to hold evidence of it. So far, so reassuring.
The gap opens at the word "competence" itself. ISO 9001 requires competence but does not define what it means for any technical sector, and AQAP-2110 does not close that gap for weapons, ordnance, munitions and explosives. NATO governance splits the two concerns: the group that owns the AQAP suite and STANAG 4107 (Edition 14) governs the quality management system, while a separate body owns ammunition safety and the technical knowledge behind it. Neither lane defines competence for the procurement and quality personnel who sit between them. A supplier can therefore hold a clean AQAP-2110 certificate and still have no evidence that the people making WOME judgements understand the ordnance in front of them. Quality assurance competence and WOME technical competence are not the same requirement, and treating them as one is a recurring weakness in defence supply chains.
How to evidence competence for an audit
The evidence trail is straightforward to describe and easy to neglect. Map each role to a post profile drawn from the relevant National Occupational Standards. Record each individual against a personal skills profile. Hold objective evidence of knowledge, skills, experience and behaviour applied in real performance, not just attendance registers. Keep that evidence current through continuing professional development and periodic review. An auditor should be able to trace competence to the task, following a clear line from the standard, to the profile, to the person, to the work.
Training pathways and professional recognition
Formal recognition helps, provided it is treated as evidence rather than as the destination. The Institute of Explosives Engineers offers a professional route, and membership such as MIExpE signals demonstrated competence and a commitment to continuing development in the explosives field. Vocational qualifications mapped to National Occupational Standards give a defensible external anchor. What ties it together is a competence plan that states, for each role, which standard applies, what evidence is required, and how it will be kept live.
ISC view
Most competence failures we see are not failures of training budget. They are failures of evidence: a real gap between the post profile and the personal profile that nobody has recorded or closed. The highest-value first step is usually a competence gap analysis that maps roles to National Occupational Standards and exposes where assumed competence has never been proven. That is cheaper than a finding, and far cheaper than an incident.
Related reading: Standards & regulation, Training & competence analysis, About ISC and Steve Sawyers. Verified profiles: LinkedIn, Sawyers Global Solutions, Companies House (No. 17010502).
Open source and unclassified. This guide is general information on the UK and NATO WOME competence framework and is not a substitute for site-specific safety or regulatory advice. AI-assisted, reviewed by Steve Sawyers MIExpE VR.