Written by Nick Garland on Monday July 13th 2015
This article is the second in a series of three, following on from my earlier piece “Why the Brits are best at H&S?”. I demonstrate in more detail the case for a Risk Assessment approach; but go further to explore where we can look for improvements. The final article will be a case study of two infamous and catastrophic incidents. I have taken a more academic approach this time – with a few references thrown in to show my sources.
The UK approach to H&S pre H&S at Work Act was highly prescriptive and targeted at specific industries, embodied in the Factories Act (Vermico, 2009). If government failed to predict and legislate, significant accidents could occur without any breach of regulation. The number of fatal accidents in the first half of the 20th century had steadily declined. However, during the 70’s, the rate had plateaued and then increased (Dalton, 1998, p. 2) – Lord Robens was tasked with creating better legislation. Realising that the workplace was getting more complex and faster paced, he didn’t believe that the established system of regulation was up to the task.
An horrific incident in the UK that deeply affected everyone was Aberfan. In 1966 a previously unknown underground spring found the surface under the dramatically increasing slag heaps. The spring turned the foundations of the heap to an unstable slurry and the resulting landslide killed 144 people, 116 of whom were children in the local school. Robens in his role at the National Coal Board, would have been aware that no regulations had actually been breached, because the regulators hadn’t predicted the risk. The impotence of the status quo would have been painful.
Robens believed that the traditional approach of ever-increasing, detailed statutory regulation was out-dated, over-complex and inadequate (Safety and Health at Work, 1972, p. 151).
The Robens report was trying to achieve a broader coverage, to all employees, not just specific industries or work place types. The reports main thrust, was those that own the hazards are best placed to assess them. This therefore is the core of the proposal, a simple goal based system (create a safe place of work), supported by guidance would allow the hazard creators to be flexible enough to control them.
However, in the decades after the publication of his report many aspects of how he saw the world of work were going to change. The effects of the information age, globalisation and the raw geographic distance between management and site require greater flexibility and a higher degree of autonomy for the front line workers.
Supervisors in particular have been transformed by the new management approach. Local responsibilities, especially in sites remote from head office, ensure that supervisors deal with strategic decisions. Effectively supervisors are no longer seen as workers and are now a key level of management (James Lowe, 1993).
Small and medium sized businesses are on the rise, providing the majority of all private sector employment.
The 70’s and 80’s were the peak of the union membership and these began to fall dramatically in the years to come.
With the reducing numbers of union members their authority has also declined, limiting influence over safety management.
In other words, the modern world of work is effectively built up of cells, either multiple independent organisations working together, or semi-autonomous teams. The role the unions once played in tying these organisations together and enforcing a good H&S culture is weakening.
Robens realised in the mid 20th century that roles and responsibilities had drifted apart (between policy makers and policy doers). In the 70s this was to say that the government could not keep pace with industry, was not aware of the risks and therefore could not legislate in advance. So it has continued in the late 20th and into the 21st century, where the policy maker is largely the company management team and the policy doers are the operatives and Supervisors on site. Management design H&S Policy, but the workers are asked to interpret and implement it.
Whilst this new flexible management style is better able to cope with the demands of the modern world, Robens did not envisage it. He saw that rigidity and hierarchy could tightly control a safe system. Decision making imposed on front line supervisors undermine Robens’ central belief of who a worker is.
Over the past 30 years, the simplification process that was the other element of Robens’ plan has started to reverse. The flat structure of a single Act with supporting approved codes of practice (ACoP) and guidance is now more a labyrinth of regulation (Pomeroy, 2010, p. 3). It is widely believed that whilst law has got simpler how to comply with that law (due to the supporting regulations) has got increasingly complex (Cullen, 1996, p 9 and Vermico, 2009).
Part of this reversal is due to the influence of European legislation. Once enacted, a member state has no choice but to introduce an EU directive into domestic legislation. The Control of Asbestos Regulations (CAR) 2012 was introduced as a direct response to the Considered Opinion. The HSE were effectively informed that the risk based approach that they had taken when introducing CAR 2006 was not in keeping with the letter of the European Asbestos Worker Protection Directive (AWPD). Consequently they were instructed to change it.
In addition EU law is by tradition more prescriptive. In Lord Cullen’s speech to the Royal Academy of Engineering (1996), he says:
When one looks at the six pack of regulations it is clear that they are more prescriptive than the earlier regulations under the 1974 Act and certainly more prescriptive than Robens would have envisaged.
And
… their language seems to go too far down the road of telling the duty holder exactly what to do.
He gives an example taken from the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 where approximately 80 words are used to specify the seating arrangements that are required on a site.
For many, many years the UK asbestos industry has used wetting techniques to damped down the material before removal – this prevents the fibres from being released into the air and therefore breathed in. This is so embedded now that we can not envisage a job done in any other way. However in Holland, fully compliant with the AWPD, they still remove asbestos dry and damp removal is a revelation. I believe this is a direct result of complying with prescriptive regulation rather than aiming for a goal – ZERO worker exposure.
The following figures were taken from the HSE’s European Comparison report (2011). Whilst accident rates have fallen, we can see the fatal accident rates remained largely flat in the 8 years following the introduction of the Six Pack.
Standardised incidence rates (per 100 000 workers) of fatal injuries at work in GB and the EU, 1998-2007, and GB 2008 estimated incidence rate (Eurostat).
The Six Pack was introduced in 1999, which was immediately followed in the UK by a sharp rise in in the fatal accident rate. The Revitalising Health and Safety initiative was introduced by the HSE in 2000 to tackle the stagnation in the UK accident figures (HSE, 2000).
These statistics suggests that the increase in the prescriptive nature of the legislation was incompatible with the goal based regulation of the UK. Cullen suggest that the increase prescriptive nature of the European Union legislation is contrary to the systems generated by HSWA 1974 (Cullen, 1996, p. 6). The Revitalising Health and Safety strategy could be seen as extra support for the British companies, effectively as a patch to rectify the effects of the Six Pack.
The US has a similar proscriptive approach to H&S. In fact going further to pull the teeth of the regulator. The Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) introduced in the mid 80’s. VPP is a process whereby companies can introduce certain controls and systems including a cooperative agreement between management and workers, an active occupational health and safety management plan and to pass an OSHA audit every three years. In return they are free from unannounced visits, effectively un-policed self-regulation.
James Pomeroy wrote in his SHP article International Safety Systems – Workin’ USA, (2010) that Mr. Michaels returned this damning assessment on the OSHA:
OSHA is constrained by both budget and legal authority. The ratio of workplaces to inspectors is more than twice what it was when the organisation was set up. Most OSHA standards are ancient and inadequate, and the organisation lacks the resources, or political clout to issue an adequate set of new ones. Many injuries and fatalities occur in the absence of violations of existing standards. Consequently, changes in the number and type of inspections are unlikely to have more than a minor impact on OSHA’s mission.
The US model, so far as they can be compared to the United Kingdom has produced starkly inferior accident figures. James Pomeroy (2010) compares the fatal and non fatal accident rates in the USA with the UK. In 2007 the US reported figures of 3.8 fatalities per 100,000 employees. This compares with 0.8 in the UK. In addition the non-fatal accidents were reported as six times greater. Indeed the fatality rate of 3.8 is worse than the figures reported by Poland and Bulgaria in 2008 (European Comparisons Report, 2011).
With so many similarities to the discredited Factories Act, taking lessons and elements from the US system is in effect drawing from the UK’s own past.
But – we can’t escape the fact that many of Robens’ assumptions have been weakened. The rigid hierarchical management structure and the strong influence of the unions has gone. The UK governments control over its own domestic H&S legislation is no longer absolute. Even the concept of who is a worker and who is management has changed. But the central core of the proposal, those that create the hazard are best placed to understand and control it, remains a powerful argument.
How therefore do we improve? Other than the US and EU model of prescriptive legislation, there is another alternative approach to the UK’s – the Canadian Resposibilization.
The Canadian Criminal Code states that individuals who undertake, or have authority, to direct how another person does work have a legal duty to prevent bodily harm to others (Gray, 2009, p. 327). This key shift in emphasis makes individual employees responsible for their own H&S.
Ontario has introduced a H&S ticketing regime (similar to parking tickets), these are directed in the main at workers and supervisors found not to be taking personal responsibility for their own H&S (Gray, 2009, p. 330).
The system has flaws and has been criticised as unfairly targeting the worker. The tickets available to the inspector are predominately aimed at the operative and the Supervisor (Gray, 2009, p. 331). However it quite clearly re-enforces the tenet that the employee has a responsibility to act safely and it is not just the management’s problem.
This, if used alongside the existing UK system of management, would adjust Robens proposal that safety was a function of management and only required the cooperation of employees. Employees wouldn’t just need to cooperate with employers, but help enforce good safety.
The main problem that Robens identified was that hazards were changing too rapidly for government to regulate. His solution was essentially simple; give the goal, create a safe place of work, to the individuals who understood the hazard the most, give them help to do this and police the system to ensure that it was done. He effectively predicted the shift in management theory, allowing decisions to be made closer to where they would have effect.
However he did not appreciate that the change that he was witnessing was only the beginning. Nor did he realise that his assumption that a supervisor was a worker and not management would be questioned.
In addition, Robens could not have predicted the influence European legislation would have on the future UK legislative framework. Whilst the law, is simpler at its core, compliance is increasingly complex. With the umbrella responsibilities of HASWA 1974 looming over companies, we get a system that is trying to be both goal based and complex.
To tackle the dramatically changed landscape, Robens needs to be strengthened at the same time as evolving.
Where regulation cannot be further simplified due to the influence of Europe, the regulators need to return to the collaborative and supportive vision Robens had originally. This will assist companies to comply with legislation.
The largest influence on H&S is management. However, the belief that an employee only has to cooperate is unhelpful. H&S management should recognise flatter company structures and supervisors as the first rung in management. This would involve taking lessons learned in Canada with the Responsibilization strategy and blending it with Robens. The ticketing system could be used to bring about a shift in the view that H&S is mainly the responsibility of senior management. Employees and especially frontline supervisors would recognise that if senior management create an unsafe environment, cooperating with this, is in effect condoning the procedure.
The flaws of the Canadian system, that it unfairly targets the worker, would be removed if the fines attached to the employee tickets were comparatively low and the fines attached to the employer ticket high. The existing system of enforcement notices available to the HSE would ensure that the focus remains on management.
The duties enshrined in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 should remain. These ensure that Robens’ core statement that H&S is principally a function of management continue to be our focus. The addition of the ticketing regime would expand the duty holders all the way through the organisation, ensuring the policy makers remain connected with the policy doers.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Lord Cullen. (1996). The Development of Safety Legislation. Paper presented at the 1996 Royal Academy of Engineering and Royal Society of Edinburgh Lecture
Dalton, AJP. (1998). Safety, Health and Environmental Hazards at the Workplace. London: Cassell.
European Comparisons. (2011). Retrieved from the HSE website: www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/european/european-comparisons.pdf.
Gray, G.C. (2009). The responsibilization strategy of Health and Safety – Neo-liberalism and the reconfiguration of individual responsibility for risk. British Journal of Criminology, 49, 326–342.
HSE (2000). Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement. London: Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
Lowe, J. (1993). Manufacturing reform and the Changing Role of the Production Supervisor: The Case of the Automobile Industry. Journal of Management Studies, 30 (5), 739-758.
Pomeroy, J. (2010, March). International Safety Systems – Workin’ USA. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
Safety and Health at Work (1972a). Volume 1. Report of the Committee 1970–72. Chairman, Lord Robens. Cmnd. 5034. London: HMSO.
Vermico, P. (2009, July). Time to Act?. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
Written by Nick Garland on Tuesday June 16th 2015
First of all apologies for the title, it is intended to be a humorous one and I believe we can learn a lot from Europe. However, British H&S regulation has a not so secret weapon that gives it absolutely the right foundation and a huge advantage when it comes to the ‘league tables’.
So we must be doing something right.
At the recent European Asbestos Forum, Dr. Herm Zweerts of Arcadis presented a fascinating piece on the approaches to asbestos and the supporting legislation across Europe. His analysis showed that:
The control limits set for asbestos exposure across the continent varied dramatically.
The underlying regulatory controls also seemed to show differences in approach.
We in Britain should definitely learn from our European colleagues and in particular the areas of openness and transparency. France’s requirement for an asbestos survey to be conducted prior to any domestic property sale would in theory eliminate accidental asbestos exposure in the home. The fledgling NL mapping process that details known asbestos containing public buildings onto a cloud-based database with geographic map is also fascinating. In my experience it is often ignorance that leads to poor management of asbestos and ultimately exposure. Not knowing there is asbestos in the house, results in the artwork being positioned unwisely, or the ambitious removal of a wall leading to massive exposure. However, couple the French absolute requirement to survey domestic properties before they’re sold with the NL cloud database would give real transparency and the prospect for a roadmap to an asbestos free world.
Whilst we are still in this imperfect contaminated one though, ignorance remains our enemy. Asbestos is a scary subject, like the Plague or Anthrax just the word is often enough to strike terror. At best the world seems to know enough to be worried but not nearly enough to be considered knowledgeable. In this fertile ground of fear and ignorance, disreputable organisations can exploit us. I have heard of many projects large and small that are much much larger than the actual asbestos problem warranted. The German approach of independent experts may help this, but I believe we need to go further. Everyone that has any involvement in asbestos whether they are an asbestos operative, construction worker or property manager needs to understand asbestos better. Let me be clear – I am not attempting to minimise the problem, but calling for us, all of us to become educated clients.
Rigorous qualifications for the UK asbestos worker – like ACAD’s NVQ coupled with genuine competence and TNA assessments such as the ones that Assure360 can provide will transform the workforce into a professional one. Asbestos awareness courses for all (construction worker, tradesmen, teachers and even the general public) will give a level of knowledge that will dispel the fear. Those that commission asbestos removal projects or manage buildings should have advance courses in asbestos such as the UK’s P405 – shining a light on shady practice.
A central exposure database (like the Spanish one), could help fuel innovation. My Assure360 system centrally collates all exposure monitoring data in the cloud in an attempt to transform a duty of care task into this driver for innovation.
I started the piece asking ‘why are the Brits best at H&S?’, this was meant to be humorous, but there is a single reason for our practical regulation and my lack of concern over our high asbestos control limit. This is the foundation to all UK H&S regulation – The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA). HASAWA came into force in 1974, is over 50 years old, and will in all likelihood be with us for at least another 50 – a near perfect piece of legislation. The authors understood that regulators do not have any hope of keeping pace with innovation. They will never be able to understand evolving industries sufficiently to implement adequate safety rules. So with a stroke of genius, they turned the whole framework on its head. The basic principles are:
The last phase is crucial – do what you can to eliminate or mitigate the risk. If we believe you could have done more, you WILL be prosecuted. Later guidance and regulation helps the employer in this task, but it remains their responsibility to assess the risk and eliminate it. The regulator no longer has to keep pace – all they have to do is make a qualitative judgement – “has the employer done enough?”.
The employer must constantly innovate to minimise the affect of his activities. This is the driver to the practical rules that Herm identified. The (embarrassingly high) figure set by the UK government for exposure is in reality a nominal one. As (due to HASAWA), the employer must reduce exposure as far as they can. The reality of UK asbestos worker exposure is somewhere between the French and German levels.
If legislation can be beautiful then HASAWA in its simplicity is just that.
The US legislative framework is very prescriptive, as is much of Europe. In essence if you can tick the requirements laid out for you, you’re in the clear. A graphic (and hopefully extreme) example of why this is a very poor approach is this:
Photograph kindly provided by Tony Rich of Asbestology LLC (in the USA)
It may take you a little while to work it out, but this is apparently a ‘technically compliant’ airlock in the US. It has three stages, separated by flaps. Ticks the boxes laid down in regs, but I’m sure you would agree – wholly inadequate. If the US had a Risk Assessment based approach like HASAWA, rather than a prescriptive one, an enforcer would be able to take one look and start building his / her prosecution.
It is because of HASAWA that we are very unlikely to see a Gulf of Mexico oil disaster in the North Sea. BP and it’s US subcontractors followed all of the rules, squeezing protocols and procedures until the relevant boxes could be ticked – with tragic and catastrophic results. In the North Sea, with a different approach, it would have been obvious that they could go a lot further than they did.
The one big weakness in the UK is that HASAWA is the Health and Safety at WORK Act, and therefore has no bearing on domestic situations. This is where I believe we can lean from France and NL, eliminating ignorance and fear.
Therefore my call is this one – the UK legislators should learn from the best in Europe. A good start to this would be by engaging in the European Asbestos Forum and in particular contribute to the 2016 conference. Secondly the world should recognise the fundamental flaw in trying to keep up with industry and lay the responsibility where it should be – with those that create the risk.
Find out how Assure360 can help you with asbestos health and safety compliance – call us today on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday June 1st 2015
The very first European Asbestos Forum conference was held in Amsterdam last week and I was lucky enough to attend. The stated aim was to improve professional networks and promote the exchange of knowledge. With the ultimate goal of helping our industry grow into a collaborative one.
I was asked to attend to share my expertise on Competence. My talk was entitled Using Technology to Deliver Competence with the case study of the Assure360 system as a demonstration on how it can be done – more on that later.
The highpoint of the morning session was a very powerful speech by the ex US Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Richard Lemen where he comprehensively debunked the claims from the asbestos producers that chrysotile is non hazardous.
Particular points from his speech to highlight would be:
The WHO figures just released indicate 125,000,000 people are exposed to asbestos every year. It is also estimated that 107,000 preventable deaths are attributable to asbestos. That is one person every five minutes. Even more shocking Dr. Lemen revealed that this figure is about to be revised UP to 194,000 per annum.
Very sobering.
The backdrop of his speech was the fact that many countries do not have a universal ban on asbestos (including the USA!). Some of this is down to commercial and political lobbying by the asbestos producers (notably Russia). Russia produces 2 million tonnes of asbestos annually, half of which it exports.
Whilst deaths from asbestos in the developed world appears to be plateauing, In developing countries it is skyrocketing. I read a stat the other day that India has overtaken China in GDP growth, add to that the fact that they are also the biggest asbestos importer.
He went on to debunk the myth that chrysotile is non hazardous, showing source after toxicological source confirming its carcinogenic nature. The final eye-catching proof was that over 30 times more chrysotile than amphibole fibres have been found embedded within mesothelioma tumours.
As I said, the reason for me attending was to share my expertise on Competence, in short the key points to any good competence system is:
If a scheme misses any of these pillars it will fall over.
This amount of direct observation takes a great deal of time. Obviously I went into more detail but the solution that makes this practical and achievable is a cleverly designed tablet application synching with a powerful cloud database.
Innovation and the asbestos industry for many years hasn’t seemed to sit side by side. However, the technology session in which I took part, was exciting. Inventions and developments showcased were:
There was also a comparative study on the pros and cons of EU national approaches to tackling asbestos. I will do a separate piece on this next week.
The aim of EAF2015 was to improve professional networks and promote the exchange of knowledge. Certainly Dr. Lemen’s speech set the tone – we’re all in it together. The collaborative approach of the subsequent sessions re-enforced this message.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday April 20th 2015
This is the first of a series of short LinkedIn articles I will run identifying legislation that might have passed under the radar.
The Confined Space ACoP was amended in December last year and its impact on asbestos removal works is more than expected.
There are now two official triggers for categorising a work area as a confined space. The first is the obvious – is the area largely enclosed – is the access / egress restricted? These would be good examples:
However the ACoP now specifically adds asbestos enclosures to this list. Any such area will require a specific escape / evacuation procedure and a means of communicating.
What makes one of these ‘largely enclosed’ work areas a Confined Space is the addition of the foreseeable risk of one or more of the following proscribed hazards:
Confined spaces therefore represent varied and very hazardous working environments. However, for the asbestos project, it is no longer just stale or bad air within a subterranean duct that qualifies – the two others I wanted to highlight, increase the number of potential Confined Spaces dramatically:
Selecting grinders or burning pipes is, fumes aside, hot works and will therefore trigger the confined space regs because of fire. In addition that hospital boiler room where isolation is impossible will also qualify because of heat stress…
The following should be the approach taken in every case:
Is the area substantially enclosed (if it’s an asbestos enclosure – then yes).
What are the hazards? Are there any on the proscribed list? If so, does the job really need to be done? Can the hazard be removed (e.g. using recips, rather than grinders, isolating pipes etc…)
If the proscribed hazards are present and can’t be removed, then the Confined Space regs will apply.
If the enclosure does not involve one of the proscribed hazards, it is not a Confined Space, but it will still require a specific escape / evacuation procedure and a means of communicating.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday March 16th 2015
Many in our industry mistakenly believe that the the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations do not apply to asbestos removal projects. Contradictorily, it is also often believed they only kick in when the notifiable triggers are exceeded. With CDM 2015 just round the corner, the following piece is a summary of the changes and how they pertain to the asbestos removal industry.
CDM either applies or it doesn’t. The extra duties imposed by notification, are just that – extra duties, for when the project is officially large. So the first question to answer is – do the new regulations apply to asbestos removal projects or not?
Regulation 2 states that:
“construction work” … includes:
(a) … de-commissioning, demolition or dismantling of a structure;
(d) the removal of a structure, or of any product or waste resulting from demolition or dismantling of a structure…’
These two clauses (incidentally also there in 2007), make it clear that asbestos removal projects are indeed covered and the duties it specifies flow from there.
CDM 2015 makes some sweeping changes, one role disappears, another arrives, client duties are expanded and some duties are taken on-board whether you like it or not.
There are five defined roles:
The main changes surround the Client and the new Principal Designer role. However, despite remaining largely unchanged the Designer might have the biggest impact on asbestos projects.
CDM 2015 takes implied responsibilities from the 2007 regs and adds liability significant phrases such as ‘must’ and ‘ensure’. The main changes are as follows:
With the exception of domestic clients**, the regs therefore no longer make the allowance that Clients don’t know what to do and now insist that they must, or employ competent advice so that they can.
** Note the duties of domestic clients are assumed by the Principal Contractor or in the case of very small jobs, the single Contractor.
Whilst this is not a new role and the duties are not tremendously different from before, it is worth understanding who a designer is and what duties they are committing to when they take it on. The regs tell us a Designer is an organisation or individual who
prepare or modify a design for a construction project (including the design of temporary works)
It goes on to say this includes, writing specifications, project management, drawings and anyone that design and modify work are included. It is therefore clear that the familiar role asbestos consultancies take on – is unarguably that of a designer.
The following key duty is therefore assumed by anyone in the role:
Must identify foreseeable risks to health and safety and apply the principles of prevention (avoid, reduce or where you can’t, control)
… identify foreseeable risks… this is where the problem comes in, whilst a good analytical consultant fully understands the issues presented by an asbestos job, our industry is often guilty of being blinkered to the host of other hazards that surround it. Therefore when specifying a removal technique, the Designer must consider if that manual handling issue can be tackled in any other way? Do the operatives really need to be exposed to vibration and noise to remove the last minuscule traces of asbestos (blasting techniques)? Does the average Asbestos Consultant have sufficiently broad H&S knowledge to identify all ‘foreseeable risks’ or the understanding of them to apply the principles of prevention? My guess is that most don’t even know what they are.
As an aside – an interesting sentence in the ACoP states that statutory bodies (e.g. the HSE?) who stipulate design changes outside of strict legal requirements, take on Designer duties.
Any project that involves more than one contractor e.g. LARC, Scaffolder, Electrician (for isolations) etc… must have both a Principal Contractor (PC) and a Principal Designer (PD). If the Client fails to appoint them, they assume the duties.
The two main changes for the PC is that the notification bar is higher. A project now needs to be notified if > 500 person days or if >30 working days AND >20 workers at any one time. The HSE believe this will halve the number of projects to be notified. However a Construction Phase Plan is now needed on ALL projects, not just notified ones. The significance of this on asbestos projects where the LARC is the PC or sole Contractor is that they must produce a Construction Phase Plan (CPP) as well as their method statement. For the small removal project most of the detail required in a CPP is already present in a good quality method Statement. But in any case the HSE are planning on providing a template.
Whilst the PC is largely unchanged, the PD is the new role on the block, replaces the old CDM Coordinator, takes on all of those duties and more. The duties are:
Remember, unlike the Designer where your can sleepwalk into the role, you can’t accidentally become a Principal Designer. Both a PC and a PD must be appointed in writing.
The role is essentially an organisational one, plus:
From experience I have found that next to nuclear, asbestos is by far the most complex hazard facing construction projects. It is therefore less of a challenge for a specialist in asbestos to up-skill in general H&S, than a generalist trying to master asbestos. In this, help and advice is available – the old CDM Coordinators are busily rebranding themselves as advisors to Designers. The asbestos consultant is therefore ideally placed to own this role. Rather than something to avoid, with the right skill set and advice this is genuine project management, which can be charged for appropriately.
In summary, it is not just the Contractor that should be concerned over high temperatures in a boiler house, or the introduction of unnecessary noise and vibration hazards (blasting techniques). We all need to become more educated and aware of areas outside our specialisms. Asbestos Consultants need to recognise the fact that they are Designers and the responsibilities that come with the role.
With Clients, the Designers have a duty that a project is completed without risk to those affected. They are mandated to get actively involved. Rather than just make design requirement, they must look at all of the implications. As this is the most liability significant duty and is automatically assumed by most consultants, the short hop to Principal Designer no longer seems onerous. But ignoring the issue will leave you badly exposed to regulatory and legal action.
Written by Nick Garland on Monday February 16th 2015
My experience is that personal monitoring is much misunderstood and therefore underused tool in the box. Often given lip service, ignored completely or done in a huge rush in the 6 months before license renewal. When it isn’t overlooked it is rarely used in a way that is of much practical use. Certainly the asbestos management databases that I have seen out there don’t seem to handle the data in any meaningful way.
Exposure monitoring should not be seen as another regulatory requirement that must be complied with, but rather an excellent way of auditing removal techniques and therefore designing better ones.
Other than ‘Error’ (test results representing something other than what was stated), measured exposure significantly above or below that anticipated indicates one of the following:
All of these events should be investigated – 1 & 2 as something went wrong, 4 & 5 because there is good practice to pass on. In fact 1 & 2 should be treated as an accident/incident and closed out as such. Measured exposure ‘at’ the anticipated level could be viewed as a near-miss.
A well constructed Excel sheet can process this data adequately, but a database would make the extraction and investigation a smooth joined up process.
Obstacles to the process that I have come across are – actually doing the personal monitoring with regularity and enough spread to cover all activities, the site team (‘we’d get in trouble if we gave them a high reading’) and the analyst themselves (too high limits of detection and vague/non-existent description of the activity tested). The last two can be solved by education.
Properly collected and collated data could then inform better research (at company or industry level) in areas that might make a big difference to the lads in the enclosure. This isn’t meant to be a shameless plug, but it’s worth mentioning that we designed the www.Assure360.co.uk system to help with this. We felt the most important elements to design in, must cover:
So that was our attempt at scoping a solution, aided by anonymous benchmarking tool to compare your results against the industry. That way, the exercise becomes a pro-active tool to improve standards, rather than just to predict exposure more accurately.
Written by Nick Garland on Monday January 12th 2015
Last time, I laid out where the change was coming from and why; now for what form the change is taking – unless we’re very careful.
On the basis of these few nebulous ‘competence’ phrases, licence assessments now focus on a company’s ability to demonstrate the competence of its workforce. Some organisations are rushing in to fill the gap with “come to us and pay ~ £800+ per person and we will prove competence for you”. These are exams branded as competence schemes and none of the main offerings entirely fit the bill. In addition, some of these new offerings are marketed as replacements for traditional learning.
Regular readers will be familiar with the three pillars of a good scheme:
Critically you then train the weaknesses away, and repeat the process.
An NVQ (very expensive unless through ACAD) fulfils 1 and 3. The old Open College Network exam from IATP (inexpensive) would satisfy 1 and if delivered by a responsible trainer would also bridge the skill gap (3). Neither however say anything of the subsequent years of the employee’s career. ARICs (very expensive) tests the competence at an instance in time but doesn’t give guidance on precise training needs. If a scheme is missing one pillar (never mind two) – it will fall over.
If you rely on these offerings exclusively, at the extreme, you could double or triple your training outlay, and still not demonstrate compliance with Reg 10. So if not one of the new breed of set piece exams or traditional training, what does compliance with Reg 10 look like?
Genuine compliance is a detailed knowledge of your workforce and a corresponding bespoke approach to training. If Bob is great at enclosure building, removing AIB (etc…), but can’t get his head around taking the overalls off in the middle stage – then his training course should focus on that. Barry, however, can’t roll a cube to save his life, so his training course needs to focus on that. George (Supervisor) never seems to enforce correct transiting and in addition he is weak on the correct protocol for making changes to the POW – his training needs to nail that.
The good news is that this kind of knowledge is only built up by the employer. Paying someone to ‘sort out competence for you’ is both eye-wateringly expensive, and ultimately a waste of money. Any decent removal contractor is making these observations routinely, there will be an unconscious recognition of ‘don’t send Barry on the domestic job, where he needs to roll 6 cubes before lunchtime’. The trick is only to get a system that records and presents them in a useable way. Articulating this knowledge, IS a Training Needs Analysis, armed with this – training can actually change for the better.
Once you know the precise weaknesses (and strengths) of Bob, Barry and George – the off the peg approach becomes a waste of everyone’s time and money. What is required is an overall catch-up session of changes in the industry, followed by masterclasses for individuals covering their individual needs. Supervisor and Operative training could overlap if the skill gap dictates. If you have the ability in house, some of these practical sessions could be led by your star employees. Both IATP and ACAD would advocate this approach – genuine TNAs driving quality training.
The trainer for the next decade would therefore be one that designs bespoke modular courses. One that will work with you and your competence system to create a tailored approach. The set piece annual one day refresher would disappear, replaced by a several 1-2 hour sessions.
The challenge for the training industry is to move from the rigid large scale, pack them in approach, to a smaller individualised service. As mentioned earlier, some of the smaller independents seem to have an advantage here, with the ability to provide a personalised course. The larger providers who produce a single course for multiple employers have the most to do.
The danger of the trainers not changing is that traditional learning will still fail to fit the bill and the rush to ‘comply with competence’ will leave them behind. Without genuine TNAs the only way for misguided souls to fake compliance with Reg 10 will be the exams and an awful lot of money would have been spent without actually improving anything.
Written by Nick Garland on Tuesday January 6th 2015
The asbestos training architecture is fixed by legislation, but with the new year upon us, is this going to remain the case? For those of us with possibly too much time on our hands it is becoming increasingly obvious that huge changes are coming our way and it is all being done by stealth.
Everyone is familiar with how it is at the moment:
Three day New Operative/Supervisor course followed by an annual refresher every year. This is mandated by Regulation 10 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations and it has been ever thus. However the standards of the training courses are often less than we would like.
Single class refresher training by large providers for multiple clients can not possibly provide the tailored approach required and can degenerate into an off the peg approach that most can sleep through and still ‘pass’.
Then there are the corrupt organisations that we’ve all heard about – where if you turn up to collect your certificate you are the star pupil.
Some of the smaller independents make a good stab at a bespoke course, but are hampered because they are never provided with detailed Training Needs Analysis (TNAs) by the client.
With some considerable justification the HSE are dissatisfied with the quality of training that has been churned out over the years. Where do we go from this not very satisfactory state?
Whilst change is needed, the drive for change is producing unfocused solutions and a great deal of vested interest.
The method by which change is coming about is the root of the problem – the vexing phrase ‘competence’. This has been a commonly used but little understood phrase in the industry for a decade or more. It is now being used to sneak in the transformation with precious little consultation and less representation by those affected. And because it is little understood, the solutions could be missing the mark.
Lets first explore where the change is coming from.
The Approved Code of Practice (L143 – the ACoP) tells us:
Para 40
Any reference in this document to competence, competent persons or competent employees is a reference to a person or employee who has received adequate information, instruction and training for the task being
Innocuous enough.
However;
Para 226 extends this with the following:
… and can demonstrate an adequate and up-to-date understanding of the work, required control measures and appropriate law.
“And can demonstrate” – leads an employer to ask how can the employee demonstrate this, when must they demonstrate it – all of the time? Annually? … And how can we as employers be confident that they can demonstrate it?
Para 227 then hits us with – ‘A training course on its own will not make an employee competent’.
Where on earth does that leave us? A situation where the only guidance available is for formal set-piece training courses, but then the ACoP tells us that it isn’t good enough – and then doesn’t help us with how!
Big changes are coming that without careful planning may cost a lot of people a lot of money. Licensed Contractors, employees, clients and trainers themselves will all be affected. The shifting landscape may very well destroy the latter.
Next time – what form the change is taking – unless we’re very careful!
Written by Nick Garland on Tuesday December 9th 2014
What makes a good competence scheme – or indeed a bad one? What we first have to ask is ‘what is competence?’ and ‘what is a competence scheme for?’
The HSE state that competence is sufficient knowledge of the tasks to be undertaken and the risks involved and the experience and ability to carry out their duties. Competence develops over time. Individuals develop their competence through a mix of initial training, on-the-job learning, instruction, assessment and formal qualification.
Europe has a big influence on all things, not least H&S. The conclusions of the European Council in March 2000 shifted focus of education policy towards lifelong learning:
is no longer just one aspect of education and training; it must become the guiding principle for provision and participations across the full continuum of learning contexts
European Commission, 2000, p. 3
Lifelong learning is seen as the common umbrella under which all kinds of teaching and learning should be gathered and it calls for a fundamentally new approach to education and training.
To put it another way, Competence is the behaviour, skills and knowledge needed to undertake a task. A Competence Scheme is a mechanism that allows the employer to understand this framework as it applies to his employees. In other words define the behaviour, skills and knowledge (competence) required to undertake a set of tasks (a job) and measuring against it. This allows us to understand the difference between desired and demonstrated competence and therefore develop a plan to close the gap (training).
Therefore a good Competence Scheme has three pillars:
Conversely a bad Competence Scheme is one that misses any one of these.
If a scheme ignores behaviour (or any other founding element) it will not recognise the difference between an employee that knows what to do, but chooses not to (due to poor choices), one that is not aware of a weakness or is aware, but doesn’t have the skills to rectify it. Clearly the response to each of these would be very different.
If a Competence Scheme is a one-off exam – it might tell you the capabilities of that individual at that snap-shot moment, but it will tell you nothing of the evolving (and devolving) skill-set.
If a system does not quantify the skill gap – or put it another way, develop a Training Needs Analysis, it will not inform the training and all of the efforts to that point would be for nought.
After all of this – what do you do with it? The answer is train. When we say train – this no longer means just a classroom, but can be a combination of toolbox talks, classroom, practical training, mentoring etc….
Then, we start the whole process again…
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Thursday December 4th 2014
The Asbestos Liaison Group (ALG) have just released some draft guidance on how to design a competence scheme, and whilst it contains some sensible pointers, there are also several areas of inconsistency and blind allies. It also weighs in at a massive 24 pages, making accessibility difficult in our busy lives.
The document is still out for consultation for a little while longer, so in an attempt to improve it – here are some of the highlights:
It specifically casts doubt on the ability of the employer to conduct adequate competence assessments on temporary (agency) staff.
Rather than guiding us to all of the qualifications available, it only promotes two that are championed by the trade organisations.
In what appears to be a contradiction, it indicates both that there should not be degrees of competence and later that different levels of performance can exist (experienced vs newly qualified operatives).
The guidance states that competence is only achieved when ALL standards are met, partial competence – say excellent removal techniques but poor airlock construction would equate to ‘not yet competent’.
Despite it being a crucial part of the whole exercise, the guidance is very brief on actually how to produce and interpret Training Needs Analysis (TNAs).
Encouragingly it does recognise that the best assessments and assessors are first line managers or supervisors, conducting direct observation. Therefore internal continual monitoring systems are king and snapshot exams (e.g. ARICS) have a limited roll. The problem is how to do it. If you follow the guidance to the letter it leads inevitably to a new 100-200 page competence document that you would have to write.
There is hope however, competence schemes are available commercially and can be found either via ACAD, IATP or internet search engines (look for “asbestos Competence Scheme”). Good practical guidance on TNAs can be obtained at IATP, but the same commercially available competence systems by their nature produce TNA reports.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday December 1st 2014
Is how we deal with asbestos waste about to change for ever? For decades the answer in the UK has been to transport it to licensed tips and bury it. Clearly this can not be a long term solution as the available space by definition is limited.
In addition there is a significant increased legal imperative to finding an alternative. EU Directive 99/31, introduced 3 classifications for landfill (hazardous, non-hazardous and inert). Asbestos waste is now only permitted to be disposed to hazardous waste sites or non-hazardous sites where separate engineered cells have been constructed exclusively for this use. Therefore ground contaminated with asbestos to very low levels, might not qualify as Hazardous Waste, but it wouldn’t be inert either.
Some EU countries have gone further and introduced legislation which paves the way for landfilling of asbestos to be banned. I’m not aware of any dates having been set, but a future ban on asbestos landfill presents a significant risk.
A commercially viable technological answer has therefore long been sought. Vulcanisation, the heating of the asbestos fibre to the point where it effectively melts seems like the ultimate solution. However, as asbestos is known for its excellent insulation properties, the process can take up to two hours even at temperatures as high as 1200oC. Commercially viable and reasonably practicable do not seem to apply.
An alternate method called thermochemical conversion technology (TCCT) has been available in the US for some years. This is essentially where a chemical flux is added to the high temperature, massively increases the efficiency of the heating process. The required temperature remains the same, but the heat transfer is so efficient, treatment of the asbestos is complete in approximately 20 minutes. The end result – non-hazardous and inert waste – or put another way, a material that is totally safe to re-use as a low grade aggregate.
ARI technologies, who own the patent, have been successfully using the process for thousands of tonnes of asbestos waste in the US since 2004. Now Windsor Waste has bought the global intellectual property and is bringing it to our shores.
With the requirement to reduce waste wherever possible, commercially viable and reasonably practicable solutions are required.
The cost of treatment appears to be approximately £100 per tonne and therefore in line with the standard cost of disposal. It also offers a solution to low level asbestos contamination in existing contaminated land projects – which would ordinarily rapidly fill the designated asbestos cells in non-hazardous sites. And it provides a tantalising way to reclaim the old asbestos landfill sites.
So the answer to asbestos waste?
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday September 15th 2014
My experience is that personal monitoring is a much underused tool in the box, often given lip service, ignored completely or done in a huge rush in the 6 months before license renewal. When it is not overlooked it is rarely used in a way that is of much practical use. Certainly the asbestos management databases that I have seen out there don’t seem to handle the data in any meaningful way.
Exposure monitoring should not be seen as another regulatory requirement that must be complied with, rather an excellent way of auditing removal techniques and therefore designing better ones.
Other than ‘Error’ (test results representing something other than what was stated). Measured exposure significantly above or below that anticipated indicates one of the following:
All of these events should be investigated – 1 & 2 as something went wrong, 4 & 5 because there is good practice to pass on. In fact 1 & 2 should be treated as an accident/incident and investigated. Measured exposure at the anticipated could be viewed as a near-miss.
A well constructed Excel sheet can process this data adequately, but a database would make the extraction and investigation a smooth joined up process.
Obstacles to the process that I have come across are – actually doing the personal monitoring with regularity and enough spread to cover all activities, the site team (‘we’d get in trouble if we gave them a high reading’) and the analyst themselves (too high limits of detection and vague/non-existent description of the activity tested). The last two can be solved by education.
Properly collected and collated data could then inform better research (at company or industry level) in areas that might make a big difference to the lads in the enclosure.
Written by Nick Garland on Thursday July 17th 2014
Here at Assure Risk Management, we pride ourselves on being able to provide you with a number of differing services, all of which encompass health and safety, or the dangers of asbestos. We offer professional Health and Safety advice to the asbestos and construction industry.
We specialise in audit and competence schemes, outsourced health and safety management, legal expert witness services and asbestos consultancy and training.
Our risk analysis based approach to providing audits combined with the wealth of experience we have gathered over the years allows us to bring a unique holistic edge to our health and safety management schemes.
Having been in this industry for over 20 years, we are also extremely proud of the reputation we have gained from continually satisfying our customers and clients, whilst always hitting high standards with the quality of our work. This ensures you can be assured of not only expertise but a sound practical approach.
We do offer some services that may come in useful for you in your workplace setting, which we will inform you of here.
With changes to the licensed asbestos training environment, the asbestos industry will have to understand its workforce in much more detail. Our Health and Safety Management system gives you the correct understanding of the Asbestos Removal Competence Scheme.
A powerful online database, married with our Audit Scheme, allows the most comprehensive analysis of the asbestos removal process available. Uniquely, the system allows you direct access to the data and all of the reports.
We also have an iPad application that allows you to compete internal audits independently, which means you don’t need to rely on any external consultants. However, it does allow you to use third party auditors to expand your coverage. This synchronisation of both internal and external audits allows for a larger data set, and therefore more accurate data analysis.
Our ability to provide both generalist health and safety expertise and detailed forensic understanding of the asbestos hazard gives all of our clients the assurance they need.
We provide specialised expert advice in support of licensed contractors either applying for their first HSE licence or at the time of renewal.
We can also provide the following services – amongst others – to many licensed asbestos removal clients, aiding them to build a streamlined, well managed company:
And these three are just examples of what we can do, there are other areas we get involved in.
Here at Assure Risk Management we understand that training is not just presenting facts to a group of delegates; asbestos awareness training is about saving not only the lives of the staff you are responsible for but also safeguarding their families. It also ensures work stoppages are kept to a bare minimum allowing you to meet your deadlines
Our training is tailored to each client, offering operative and management focused courses to ensure you have asbestos competence. We also provide duty to manage bolt-ons for managers with a responsibility for buildings.
Our final bespoke training service is the provision of high quality e-learning packages for larger clients. These interactive presenter led courses incorporate broadcast quality filming and innovative techniques to deliver the most effective e-learning experience.
If you have any questions or would like to find out more about how we can help you, call us on 0845 226 4318 or email us enquiries@assure360.co.uk