Method
Four steps that show whether the people doing your ammunition, explosives and procurement work are competent, and whether you could prove it at audit.
In one sentence. The Competence Evidence Test asks whether an auditor, a Government Quality Assurance Representative (GQAR) or a court could see, from the records you already hold, that the person doing a piece of weapons, ordnance, munitions and explosives (WOME) work is competent to do it.
ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.2 requires an organisation to determine and evidence the competence of anyone whose work affects quality. AQAP-2110, the NATO quality assurance requirement for design, development and production, carries that requirement into defence contracts. Neither document says what competence looks like for ammunition, explosives or the people who buy them.
Three frameworks cover the ground between them, and no single one joins them up:
The result, found repeatedly in audit, is that organisations hold training certificates and attendance records and call them competence evidence. The test exists to separate the two.
The test is applied role by role, to every post that touches WOME procurement, quality or safety.
List every requirement that binds this role on this contract: the contract clauses (AQAP-2110 flow-down, an AQAP-2105 deliverable quality plan), ISO 9001 Clause 7.2, any DSA 02.OME duty-holder responsibility, and the National Occupational Standards unit that describes the task. Output: one requirement line per role.
Establish what the person can demonstrably do against the performance criteria and knowledge requirements in step 1, judged by someone competent to judge it. Qualifications, course attendance and years in post are inputs to this step, not proof of it.
Identify the records an auditor or GQAR could inspect today: assessment records, supervised practice, currency, letters of authorisation, SQEP designations. If it is not on file, it does not count, however true it is.
For every gap between step 1 and step 3, record the consequence (safety, contractual or regulatory) and a decision: close it, mitigate it (for example supervision or a second-person check), or accept it with a named owner. Each action carries an acceptance test so everyone can tell when it is done.
A role-by-role register: one line per post, showing the requirement, the competence held, the evidence on file, the residual risk and the action that closes it. The same register serves a GQAR visit, an ISO 9001 surveillance audit, a bid submission and a training plan, because it answers the same question for all of them.
| Service | How the test is used |
|---|---|
| WOME Competence Assessment | The full test across an organisation's WOME-facing posts. |
| AQAP-2110 Compliance Support | Steps 1 to 3 applied to the Clause 7.2 evidence a GQAR will ask for. |
| ISO 9001 Clause 7.2 Support | Builds the framework that keeps steps 2 and 3 current. |
| Procurement Bid Review | Tests whether a bid evidences the competence it claims. |
| Training | Courses are designed against the step 1 requirement lines. |
The Competence Evidence Test, version 1.0, Sawyers Global Solutions Limited, 20 September 2026. sawyersglobalsolutions.org/competence-evidence-test.html
Steve Sawyers MIExpE VR has more than 25 years in Weapons, Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives: Army Ammunition Technician and Joint Force EOD in Iraq, munitions management at Defence Munitions Longtown, Explosives Safety Assurance Manager at HM Naval Base Clyde, Supply and Transport Officer (Naval) aboard RFA Fort Victoria and RFA Fort Austin, and nearly eight years at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency in Luxembourg, latterly as Senior Ammunition Technician. He is a Member of the Institute of Explosives Engineers. SGS does not subcontract core advisory work. The full career record is published.
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