NPER specific area of practice landslide risk managementNPER Draft Guideline for comment by the Membership of AGS

You will find on the following pages a final draft of the guideline for applicants on eligibility criteria and procedures for recognition in the specific area of practice within the National Professional Engineers Register (NPER) for Landslide Risk Management.

This document is being published here to permit comment by the membership of AGS prior to forwarding the completed document to the National Engineering Register Board (NERB) for their consideration for its implementation.

You would recall that the development of a specific area of practice for LRM within the National Professional Engineers Register (NPER) is in response to requirements of legislation, and is a means for practitioners to demonstrate competency as required by such legislation. At the moment, that means areas covered by NSW Kosciusko Alpine (under NSW SEPP75), Victorian Alpine (under an EMO), and Pittwater Council area in the northern beaches of metropolitan Sydney (under an Interim Geotechnical Policy). Wollongong City Council also is in the process of updating its policy in a comparable fashion. Each of these pieces of legislation is similar in that they all require practitioners to be chartered professionals (i.e. CPEng, CPGeo or RPGeo) and “to demonstrate core competencies in landslide risk management”. The specific area of practice under NPER for LRM will be a means of demonstration of those competencies, where required by these pieces of legislation. At present, there is no means, other than by CV, to provide this demonstration of competency. The National Committee believes that leaves several challenges in regards to such assessment.

A competency panel populated by representatives of our Society, as well as the Civil College of Engineers Australia, has developed the guideline. The competency panel has reported directly to the National Committee of AGS as progress has been made. The philosophy adopted in the development of the specific area of practice of Landslide Risk Management within NPER was approved at the November 2004 National Committee meeting. In addition, the first draft was circulated to the AGS LRM Sub-Committee for comment; this committee has representatives nationwide. The text of the final draft guideline was presented to the AGS National Committee meeting in April 2005, wherein the philosophy of the approach was again endorsed. Since that time, the registration guideline has been subjected to review and a flowchart developed which explains the process. The flowchart is presented in Figure 2. This was reported to you in the previous issue of Australian Geomechanics.