The government bill on the amendment of acts governing the conditions for access to certain professions (third tranche of deregulation) stipulates a series of changes and facilitating measures for obtaining, among others, geological licences and mining professions. On 7 August 2015, the bill was handed over to the President of the Republic of Poland for signature.
The scope of the proposed changes concerning the geological qualifications was described in the blog entry of 22 May 2015 titled “Will the planned changes concerning geological licences come into force?”. In that article we pointed out that the bill was stalled in the Sejm for nearly one year.
According to the bill, some licence categories are to be combined and the scope of the licence in some categories would change. The obligation to hold professional competence to execute, supervise and manage geophysical works other than seismic works and well logging will be waived. Moreover, the bill provides for the elimination of category X and combines categories XI and XII into category XIII.
Based on the planned changes, qualifications in categories I-VIII will entitle holders to execute and manage geological works in the area of regional studies of geological structure of the country and deep ground boreholes which are not related to documenting mineral deposits. The above regulation will replace the currently applied provisions restricting the performance of such projects only for the holders of qualifications of categories I-V and VIII.
In addition, the planned changes affect the rules of procedure for the verification of qualifications as well as changes in the recognition industry-related experience and education.
The solutions proposed in the bill are another step in the process of deregulation of mining professions. Some of the new regulatory solutions are presented below. They provide for the deregulation of additional positions in the operation of a mining plant which involve specialist activities (these positions include, for example, blasting instructor in underground mining plants, welder in underground mining plants, welder in open-pit mining plants).
The bill has also introduced the possibility for joint recognition of the qualifications in specific areas of mining activity (underground activity including the activity carried out pursuant to Article 2 sec. 1 of the Geological and Mining Law of 9 June 2011, or open-pit or wellbore mining activity); this change applies to all the situations where the obligation to have one's qualifications recognised remains in force.
Furthermore, the bill replaced a three-level supervision model with one that assigns the supervisory personnel of the mining plant to two levels (senior and regular).
The scope of authority under the licence of mine surveyor, mining geologist or mining geophysicist has been broadened by including the relevant positions of operations department managers in mining plants, which resulted in the elimination of separate qualification recognition for the managers of surveying and geological departments.
The regulations concerning the scope of recognised qualifications have been made more flexible by introducing the possibility of selecting the specific content of the application for recognition of qualifications (for each type of mining plant and each method of operation). This will reduce the number of proceedings.
Another important change introduces a regulation which makes employers responsible for determining the employee's professional preparation and experience. In the practice to date there were doubts as to whether, for example, in case of the performance of certain outsourced activities as part of the operation of a mining plant or a plant carrying out geological operations, the related requirements are to be defined by the entrepreneur that outsources the performance of such operations or rather the service provider.
The new regulation ensures the consistency of the Geological and Mining Law with the regulations on explosive materials designated for civil use by moving away from the duplication of psychiatric and psychological tests which, under the current legal system, are required with respect to blasting specialists (in open-pit mining plants and in mining plants exploiting minerals through boreholes) and dispensers of blasting agents, as well as (in case of underground mining plants) blasting instructors, both on the basis of the Geological and Mining Law and on the basis of the regulations on explosive materials designated for civil use. As a result, the above persons no longer will be obliged to obtain as many as four documents, i.e. two medical certificates and two psychological certificates.
In order for the legislative process to be completed, the act has to signed by the President and promulgated in the Journal of Laws. As far as the above-described changes are concerned, the act will enter into force after 6 months of its promulgation in the Journal of Laws.