All candidates wishing to join CIWEM as a direct entry fellow, member or associate are expected to provide evidence that they have attained the ten mandatory competences. Mandatory competences are designed to:

• broaden a trainee's understanding of the environmental sector in preparation for the professional review
• provide the trainee with a wide range of transferable skills
• provide an externally accredited framework of aims and objectives
• add minimal extra workload on the employees and organisations involved
• provide one to one monitoring of progress and attainment
• accommodate accreditation of prior experience and training.

The competences:

• are an advance body of personal knowledge in water and environmental affairs
• formulate strategies and policies for the development, improvement and use of the environment in your work activities
• contribute to the competitiveness and operational effectiveness of the organisation in which you work
• apply professional ethics to your own work
• co-ordinate and control the safety of systems and services
• develop personal competencies
• identify requirements and factors which influence the development, improvement and use of the environment in relation to your work activities
• prepare and assess recommendations and solutions for potential developments
• prepare documents for procurement, contract and production
• plan and control the installation of systems and services
• plan the operation of, maintain and assess the performance of systems and services.

To date some forty significant organisations in the water and environmental sector have introduced CIWEM structured training. These organisations recognise that training is vital to the maintenance of a top level service.

Common rational for choosing the CIWEM option are that:

• the broad range of disciplines encompassed by the Institution, and the flexibility of the scheme, make it attractive to a large number of people and complements the multi-disciplinary approach of the firm
• CIWEM is one of a small number of professional institutions recognised by the firm as granting a qualification of stature and wide recognition.

The range of organisations that have found benefit from CIWEM structured training includes regulators, utility companies and consultants. They range in size from several hundred employees with turnover measured in several millions of pounds annually to a handful of employees with a turnover of a few hundred thousand pounds. Some employers have developed very generic schemes that cover scientists, environmentalists and engineers whilst others have developed very detailed schemes that are focused entirely on one job function. In short, the framework which CIWEM provides can be adapted to fit any organisational practice and corporate objectives.

For more information about the benefits of structured training and how to develop a company scheme for approval, please contact CIWEM's Professional Development Department or email admin@ciwem.org.uk .