Sometimes a “competency” is not really a competency but a compliance requirement. Those cannot be ignored. A realistic system must deal with both real competencies and compliance requirements.
For example, sometimes the evidence of compliance with a compliance requirement is stipulated as having taken a course of a certain duration, regardless of whether or not something was actually learned in the course. In a pure competency management perspective, evidence of this sort would be considered polluting, since no real inference can be made regarding the competency of the people who have been trained.
However, that is reality, and it must be dealt with. This is why different confidence policies may be applied by different entities or at different times in competency management systems. For the purpose of regulatory conformance, one needs to apply the regulatory policy. This might state that only a particular form of competency evidence deserves any confidence. For the purpose of training or personal development, one would typically apply a different policy. This might state that assessment based competency evidence deserves a higher confidence rating. Under such a policy, a certificate of course completion might be given a low confidence rating as evidence of competency.
Using this approach allows one to reconcile the requirements of both pure competency management and regulatory requirements in the same system. The trick is not to take anything at face value, but to always qualify with a confidence rating and a reference to the policy that was used to determine the confidence rating. If you don't trust the policy, then you should not trust evidence that is highly rated by the policy. If you trust the policy, and you trust that it was applied reasonably, then there is a much better chance that the evidence is relevant and reliable.
