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Comply to Win
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New year, new health and safety legislation - don’t get caught out!
New Health and Safety (Offences) Act
The
Health & Safety Offences Act 2008 will come into force on 16th
January 2009 and covers Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Act
doesn't impose additional duties upon individuals or businesses but
will increase the penalties for existing offences and broadens the
range of offences for which an individual can be imprisoned:
- the
maximum fine which may be imposed in the lower courts has been
increased from £5,000 to £20,000 for most health and safety offences
which should result in a "faster, less costly and more efficient
justice" according to DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) Minister
Lord McKenzie. There are unlimited fines in the higher courts.
- imprisonment
is an option for individuals prosecuted for health and safety offences
in both the lower and higher courts - up to 12 months in a Magistrates
Court (6 months in Northern Ireland) and 2 years in a Crown Court.
- certain offences, which are currently triable only in the lower courts, will be triable in either the lower or higher courts.
- Directors
and senior managers can currently be convicted if it can be shown that
the company failing occured as a result of their “consent, connivance
or neglect” under Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
The new Health and Safety Offences Act now provides that a prosecution
under this section may attract a jail term.
As
the penalties are higher, businesses and individuals must ensure that
risk assessments, safe working practices and training are in place and
being followed. |
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New gas safety scheme – Gas Safety Register
Further
to the rumour reported in our last newsletter, it has now emerged that
there will indeed be a new gas safety scheme from this April. Currently
it's a legal requirement that all gas workers must be registered with
Corgi.
This will be replaced by the new Gas Safe
Register, run by Capita and overseen by the Health and Safety Executive
(HSE). According to HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger, this new
scheme “will focus exclusively on improving consumer gas safety and (I)
believe it will be a cost effective scheme for installers.” Let’s hope
so!
More information and online registration details can be found at http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk
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New working at height safety guidance
The
UK's Work at Height Regulations require that contractors consider a
hierarchy of safety measures when undertaking work at height, with
collective forms of prevention to be considered before personal devices
such as fall arrest harnesses.
The National Access
& Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) in the UK has recently published
new safety guidance to highlight the use of collective forms of fall
prevention - such as advance guardrails and powered aerial platforms -
during erection and dismantling of scaffolding. This can be downloaded
free at www.nasc.org.uk and gives details of collective measures, such
as powered aerial platforms, advance guardrails, step-up devices and
scaffolders’ working platforms.
NASC believe that
this interim guidance is necessary before the next scheduled update of
the user guide in 2010 because so much has changed in the market since
the original guidance in 2005. Since its introduction in 2000, the NASC
has seen a 40% reduction in the number of falls recorded from a
scaffold/working platform - from 27 in 2001 to 17 in 2007.
Stay safe when working at height with a range of specially designed products from MBHS: view products
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Enquiry into construction fatalities
Over
2,800 people in the construction industry have died from injuries they
received as a result of construction work in the past 25 years. So, it
seems only fitting that, in December, the Department for Work and
Pensions opened an enquiry into the root causes of construction
fatalities.
Secretary of State James
Purnell said, "The construction industry is one of the most dangerous
sectors in the country. No one can find it acceptable that this number
of people have died directly as a cause of their work ... I am keen to
get started and work with the trade unions, the industry and the Health
and Safety Executive to see what lessons we learn from the root causes
of construction accidents so that we can improve the health and safety
of construction workers.”
Purnell
has appointed Rita Donaghy as independent chair of the enquiry, which
will proceed in three phases: a comprehensive review of existing work
to consolidate the understanding of fatal injuries in the construction
industry with specific reference to vulnerability; a deeper analysis of
underlying causes, including factors outside the health and safety
system; and the report to ministers and HSE's board later in 2009. |
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The consequences: tower scaffolding safety failure costs £22,000
A
criminal court in the UK recently fined a shop fitting company £10,000
plus costs of nearly £12,000 for three breaches of the Work at Height
Regulations 2005. The case followed the 3 metres fall of a worker for
E&F Joinery in Hailsham from a mobile tower scaffolding at a
construction site in Enfield in 2006.
The
Health & Safety Executive (HSE) determined that the tower did not
have proper edge protection and that it was not inspected before use.
Although the injured worker was not an E&F Joinery employee, the
company was responsible for planning, supervising, and controlling the
work. |
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Focus on asbestos
Exposure
to asbestos is the biggest single cause of work-related deaths, with
around 4,000 people a year dying from asbestos-related diseases
including mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer. Asbestos is known
as the ‘hidden killer’ as it can take up to sixty years to develop in
your body, which is why numbers are increasing as workers exposed to
asbestos perhaps forty years ago are going on to develop one of the
related diseases.
Asbestos may be present
in any building constructed or refurbished before 2000 and it is
estimated that about 500,000 non-domestic buildings could contain
asbestos nationally. Asbestos can be fine as long as fibres are not
disturbed but, if you start sawing it or drilling, it creates dust and
the fibres get on to your lungs.
MBHS
provides a guide that allows you to assess and manage the risk of
asbestos in the workplace – this is available to buy for £21.50 from
the MBHS website.
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MBHS Company Registered name: McCormack Benson Health and Safety Limited;
Company Reg No. 4571646; Registered address: Unit 1, Hedley Ave, Grays, Essex RM20 4EL |
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