Competence programme for electrical workers

As a licensed electrical worker, you must complete a competence programme to refresh your knowledge and assess your competence every 2 years. You must do this before you can renew your practising licence.

All registered electrical workers must hold a practising licence to carry out prescribed electrical work. You must renew your licence every two years. Before you can do this, you must complete the competency programme (if your last programme was over two years ago).

How it works

You will need to enrol in a competency course with a provider of your choice, who runs a course relevant to your class of registration. We recommend you book in early to make sure you get a place in the course you want to attend.

Competence Programme changes CPR requirements

Competence Programme Providers need to ensure they cover cardio-pulmonary resuscitation to the New Zealand Resuscitation Council requirements.

These have been updated, read more detail.

Each electrical worker now has a portal to their own Competence Management pages where records of your Competence Programme attendance will be held. Access this Competence Management page through your EWRB portal(external link).

If you are not within your renewal window you can access this page directly through your portal here(external link).

Within the Competence Management pages you can search for available courses in your area and make a booking, or be forwarded to your chosen Provider’s own booking site. Your provider will contact you to organise payment and advise on any other requirements.

You will need to must ensure that you are booking a course that is:

  • appropriate for the class of registration that you hold and:
  • appropriate to your area of work

Online modules

If you have not yet completed these modules they are now available on your Learning Page.

If you have completed the current modules there is no requirement to redo them again unless your current Competence Programme has expired.

Certification for a practising licence renewal relies on the completion of the appropriate module and competence programme. Re-certification by doing just a competence programme will occur if the previous certification has yet to expire.

If your certification expires you will need to complete the 2 e-learning modules again to re-set your certification. If your competence programme is overdue you will need to redo the on-line modules to get your certification back.

Please note: in future any new modules that are placed on your Learning page will need to be completed to gain full certification.

When you attend the Competence Programme course you will:

  • get a basic first aid and CPR refresher
  • be given an update on any relevant current electrical issues by the facilitator
  • complete a written assessment, made up of 10 questions. This is 'open book' — you can take reference material in with you to use during the assessment
  • do a practical testing exercise.

If you have recently completed a Red Cross or St Johns revalidation course of 6401 and 6402 (for workplace requirements) you can ask to have your CP Provider exempt you from their First Aid and CPR session, however you must meet these criteria:

  • the revalidation course must occur within 3 months of the date of the CP course
  • you can provide evidence of one of the above courses that satisfies your CP Provider.
  • you have checked with your CP Provider that they will exempt you with the right evidence.

They will then upload the full CP course completion.

Next steps

Once you've completed (and passed) the competence programme, your provider will update your details in the EWRB portal. When you apply to renew your practising licence, we will already have confirmation that you have met your competency obligations and you are eligible to renew.