Hi Richard
Learning Plans can be used to assign competencies based on the learner's organisation/position.
Competencies can be linked to courses and course pulled into Learning Plans from the competency. See Competency settings for more details. The user can also have their competency permission adjusted under advanced workflow to allow them to request a another competency and competencies can be made optional or manadatory.
It is also possible in Totara 12 to import competency frameworks by HR Import to make this easier to manage
Once the Learning Plan template has been set up to pull through the competencies and courses by the learners organisation/position then the Learning plan can be automatically created for dynamic audience members.
This is what can be done now - we are currently working on gathering requirements and implementing Totara Perform which will include competencies and Learning Plans.
I have asked for someone working on Perform to look at your use case to try and see how we can fit this into the requirements.
Regards