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At the Cabinet of Ministers meeting on December 19th this year, amendments were approved to the regulations for evaluating the competence and independent practice of construction specialists. These amendments combine the specialties of construction management and supervision, aligning the standards with the Construction Law regulations, and improving the conditions for professional development exams, significantly reducing the administrative burden for construction specialists, clients, and competence evaluation institutions.

With these amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers' regulations, the specialties of construction management and supervision are combined, aligning the standards with the Construction Law regulations. This expands the number of construction specialists who can practice in these previously separate fields, and they will no longer have to fulfill separate practice requirements in each field. As a result, not only the administrative burden will be reduced, but also the financial burden, as in the future, to perform both construction management and supervision, supervision fees will only have to be paid for one field of activity (instead of two).

Applying professional development exams only for missing topics will significantly reduce the administrative burden for both the competence evaluation institutions and the construction specialists who need to undergo this exam. Instead of full competence exams (which for some institutions consist of up to 20 questions), they will only need to answer a few questions on the missing professional development topics.

Furthermore, the fields of distribution and consumer gas supply are combined with the transmission gas and oil supply field. Considering that construction specialists in both fields have similar qualification requirements regarding education, it is reasonable to combine these fields to not only reduce the fragmentation of construction specialists' fields of activity but also to reduce the administrative burden for construction initiators, as in the future, only one construction specialist will be needed for gas supply cases.

Simultaneously, the scope of the fields of activity for port and marine hydraulic structure construction specialists has been expanded (stating that this field includes all types of other hydraulic structures), as well as for road construction specialists (stating that this field includes railway construction structures that are not rail tracks, such as embankments).

At the same time, the amendments introduce an in-depth examination of construction specialists, checking at least 1% of construction specialists in each field of activity every year to ensure effective supervision. Also, to ensure uniform practice among construction specialist certification institutions when evaluating violations by construction specialists, the suspension terms for certificates have been specified for each violation, based on the severity of the violation. It should be emphasized that after the second warning, a decision will be made on a repeated competence evaluation, which must be completed within six months; if the construction specialist does not pass the exam, the certificate will be suspended.

The amendments also stipulate that in the future, there will be only one competence evaluation institution in each field of activity, with which a delegation contract can be concluded for up to 10 years. This will significantly reduce the administrative burden for certification institutions, as well as ensure stability and competence accumulation in certification institutions.

We remind you that this April, the Saeima approved several amendments to the Construction Law, with different effective dates. The regulation that will reduce the administrative and financial burden for construction specialists and the fragmentation of construction specialist fields of activity - the construction supervision specialty being added to the construction management specialty, while retaining the construction supervision duties and the role of the construction supervisor in the construction process - will come into effect on January 1, 2024. For additional information: https://www.em.gov.lv/lv/jaunums/no-2024-gada-buvuzraudzibas-specialitate-tiek-pievienota-buvdarbu-vadisanas-specialitatei.

You can find detailed information about the amendments in the Cabinet of Ministers' March 20, 2018, regulations No. 169 "Regulations on the Competence Assessment and Independent Practice Supervision of Construction Specialists" on the Legal Acts Portal.

Economics Ministry Public Relations Department prese@em.gov.lv