No Frills Networking. Expo 2013

Watch out for the No Frills Networking Expo 2013, to be held at the Bonded Warehouse, Stourbridge on Saturday 22nd June from 09:00 until 13:00. Full details below:

Who is responsible for fire safety?

Who is responsible for fire safety?

Generally, the employer (Responsible Person) is responsible for the fire safety of all who are lawfully on the premises (Relevant Persons). These include employees, visitors, contractors, members of the public and any person in the immediate vicinity, such as people walking past. Operational fire fighters at incidents are not included.

Responsibility for managing duties on behalf of the Responsible Person (RP) at the head of an organisation may be shared, for example, between branch or area manager, depending on the extent of control each has i.e. they must have the appropriate authority, skills and training to manage these duties. 

Is it permissible for others to carry out duties on behalf of the Responsible Persons?

Yes, the RP may nominate Competent Persons (CP). For instance, an RP may nominate others to act as fire marshals or wardens with a duty for assisting with evacuation; or an engineer might be given the task of testing fire alarms.

The RP must ensure CPs have the ability to carry out their tasks i.e. they must be properly competent, trained and equipped, or external experts may be brought in to fill any shortfall. 

Please bear in mind that delegating duties falling within the RP’s remit does not absolve a person from responsibility. It is down to the RP to put sufficient checks in place to ensure delegated duties are carried out correctly.

Do employees have responsibility?

Yes, employees must take reasonable care for the safety of themselves and others who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work e.g. wedging open a fire door. It is the RP’s responsibility to ensure employees receive training.

Who is responsible for fire safety in multi-occupied premises?

This may be shared by several people. In a multi-occupied office, the landlord/owner and tenants may be responsible for common areas with each occupier responsible for the areas they control. 

The fire alarm may be the sole responsibility of the landlord/owner if it is common to the entire premises. A tenancy agreement should identify who is responsible for each area of fire safety.

Occupiers have a duty to take reasonable steps to co-operate and co-ordinate with each other.

Who is responsible for fire safety when there is no employer?

The person in control of the premises is responsible. This could be the person or organisation paying the rent or owning the building. e.g. a charity trustee in the case of a charity shop or a parish council in case of a village hall.

Who is responsible for fire safety in an unoccupied building?

This is normally the owner of the building

For more information or help in carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment see our website www.anchorhands.co.uk

Fee For Intervention is Here

This month saw a new system for health and safety inspections come into force in the UK, which will result in companies being billed for some regulatory activity.

Under the cost recovery scheme, unveiled by the Government earlier this year, businesses failing to comply with legislation could now face heavy costs.

The Fees for Intervention (FFI) initiative is being operated by national regulator the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which will see charges introduced in a range of areas, including the production of letters and reports, evidence gathering and site visits.

They will be targeted at those organizations that break the rules and will be linked to related costs of taking enforcement action, with an hourly FFI rate of £124 set for 2012-13.

Firms that fully comply with all UK health and safety legislation will continue to incur no charges and the HSE will examine how the system is working after 12 months of operation, reporting the results of its review within three months of the scheme taking effect.

The FFI charges will be in addition to any fines and legal costs faced by businesses charged with failing to meet their health and safety obligations.

If you need help with getting your health and safety system right, then contact us via www.anchorhands.co.uk

Health and Safety Management Systems – Why Bother?

When someone uses the phrase “management system” it conjures up an image of an office full of clerks, busy filling in endless reams of paper, without anyone actually knowing what the end result is. This does not need to be the way, especially when it comes to health and safety, the object of the exercise is to have a system that works for your needs, one that not only gives you results but also achieves its objectives of keeping you and everyone else safe.

A health and safety management system can be as simple as a one page set of tick boxes, to make sure you haven’t forgotten something important, right up to an OHSAS 18001 system which not only controls everything you do with health and safety, but can be audited to an international standard as well as demonstrating that you are working to best practice. The important thing is that the system should do what you want or need it to do, it should not create procedures for the sake of it and should be clear in its results and observations.

Given that a health and safety management system can be simple, certainly shouldn’t be excessive and will produce clear results, what will we gain from having one and how much is it going to cost? There are some very simple answers to these questions:

What will we gain?

A safer working environment

Less absenteeism

Increased production                                    

Happier workforce

Customer recognition                                     

Peer recognition

Mitigation against legal costs                          

Defence against legislation breeches

Lower insurance costs                                    

Access to additional work opportunities         

           

How much will it cost?

Debit:    Producing the system                                     

             Necessary capital expenditure (guarding etc)

             Training costs of personnel                             

             Monitoring & auditing

Credit:  Less absenteeism                                          

             Increased production

             Lower legal costs                                            

             Lower insurance costs

             Mitigation against fines and claims                  

             Maintenance of company reputation

             Increased tendering opportunity

Taking all of the above, together with many more benefits, it can be seen that the reasons we bother are simple, a well produced health and safety management system will help you keep all around you safe thus avoiding absenteeism, lost production and legal claims against you, it will help you comply with current legislation avoiding legal costs, it will demonstrate to customers and your peers, that you are a company they would like to do business with, it can help keep your insurance costs down, maybe even reducing them and it could provide the conditions that will allow you to access many other tendering opportunities.

So, why bother?                      Increased profitability

                                                Increased reputation and profile

                                                Happier, more productive workforce

                                                Increased work opportunities

                                                Legal compliance

                                                Because it’s the right thing to do!

If you would like to know more about how effective a health and safety management system can be or to discuss any other matters relating to health and safety, then please contact us via our website at www.anchorhands.co.uk

Welcome Back "Bob-a-Job" and Sanity

Bob-a-Job week returns this week, two decades after the Scout Association scrapped it over health and safety concerns and the rise of compensation culture.

For generations of Scouts, it was a time for raising money by performing good deeds – until health and safety fears and the rise of compensation culture saw it scrapped. Now, 20 years after the last one, Bob-a-Job week will this week be revived by the Scout Association, as leaders attempt to rebuild the movement's traditional commitment to helping others.

The scheme, which starts on Saturday 12^th May 2012, will see more than 144,000 children take part in thousands of community projects across the UK. The revamped scheme has been designed to comply with health and safety laws and to avoid the risk of compensation claims that saw its previous incarnation halted in 1992. Then, unsupervised children, would knock on strangers' doors to ask if they wanted jobs done. Now, the scouts will operate in groups while carrying out work and will be supervised all the time by their leaders.

Bob-a-job week was first introduced as a good turn day in 1914 by scout movement founder Lord Baden-Powell. In its previous format, officially known as Scout Job Week, it was started during Easter week 1949 and became an annual fixture.

The scheme got its nickname from shilling, colloquially 'bob', that the youngsters were paid for completing their good turn - which would now be worth 5p.

New date for health and safety cost recovery scheme

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced that its cost recovery scheme, Fee for Intervention (FFI), is going ahead but will now not start in April 2012.

The scheme sets out to recover costs from those who break health and safety laws for the time and effort HSE spends on helping to put matters right - investigating and taking enforcement action.

Law-abiding businesses will be free from costs and will not pay a penny.

Gordon MacDonald, HSE's programme director, said:

"The Government has agreed that it is right that those who break the law should pay their fair share of the costs to put things right - and not the public purse.

"The Government intends to proceed with the FFI scheme as recommended to ministers by HSE's Board in December in response to the formal consultation that took place last Summer.

"Discussions are still taking place on the technical details of the scheme, which we expect to conclude soon.

"Therefore, FFI will not be introduced in April but at the next available opportunity, which is likely to be October 2012."

(RIDDOR) Change – 6 April 2012

From 6 April 2012, subject to Parliamentary approval, RIDDOR’s over three day injury reporting requirement will change. From then the trigger point will increase from over three days’ to over seven days’ incapacitation (not counting the day on which the accident happened).

Incapacitation means that the worker is absent or is unable to do work that they would reasonably be expected to do as part of their normal work.

Employers and others with responsibilities under RIDDOR must still keep a record of all over three day injuries – if the employer has to keep an accident book, then this record will be enough.

The deadline by which the over seven day injury must be reported will increase to 15 days from the day of the accident.