Written by Nick Garland on Tuesday May 30th 2017
For decades, the HSE’s requirements have not been well communicated, or have been described in terms frequently misunderstood by the industry. The license holder (or the prospective one) has too often been left to work it out for themselves.
It takes a courageous removal company to stand their ground when presented with the opinion of the inspector on the spot. To be fair, there is no manual that the HSE can pull off the shelf describing the perfect asbestos removal company. But this ad hoc, local, opinion-led approach has produced a host of different solutions:
Whilst some of these questions are new to the last few years, exposure monitoring has been causing licence holders problems for my entire career.
But why is this so difficult? The LARCs – licensed asbestos removal consultants – do manage health and safety, producing method statements and documentation far more detailed and considered than their construction counterparts. They spend vast sums on training staff, and ensure levels of supervision beyond what other industries would even consider. Exposure monitoring has been a challenge, but the tests are done in line with guidance and by skilled analysts, perhaps just not frequently enough – but done.
So why do these questions become so difficult to answer in a licence renewal meeting?
First, there is no 100% right answer and nowhere to look for advice, beyond asbestos specialised health and safety consultants (like myself). The trade organisations can also pitch in with this, but the independents are too few and far between to help everyone. However, as all industries can tell you, parachuting in a consultancy to ‘identify and solve underpinning problems’ sometimes leads to superficial solutions. The way I have always approached it is to become embedded in that company – almost as a part time H&S manager or officer. This degree of understanding is vital for crafting solutions.
Second, the nature of licence renewal is often adversarial, with the future of the company on the line. This does not lead naturally to a relaxed environment where ‘business as usual’ can be showcased.
So, how can Assure360 help?
Firstly, all reputable asbestos removal companies conduct audits. These are sometimes conducted on Excel, or iAuditor (an interface with Excel) but often on paper. The problem with these solutions is that they tell you little beyond high level non-conformances and it can be challenging to extract meaningful trends. The paper version (or a PDF) is often a cul-de-sac, with non-conformances trapped on the paper, hidden in a file.
When asked – ‘How do you manage H&S?’, too often the answer is a jumble of files, hard to decipher Excel spreadsheets, and in worst case scenarios un-actioned paper audits.
Not so with Assure360. The audits completed on the free App are the most comprehensive available, developed by me over the past decade.
A warts-and-all approach, where ‘challenged’ sites are discussed, becomes real evidence of proactive management.
One client, Rob Wasson from Delta Services, recently contacted me after a licence renewal. He told me: “When I demonstrated the Assure360 system to the HSE, it made me proud of all that we had achieved.”
That degree of confidence and enthusiasm can only be massively influential at renewal time.
The new question that the HSE can nail us with is how do you ensure the competenceof your workforce?
Competence is a tricky customer and can be a complex thing to measure – after all, just showing them the training certificates is not enough. I’ve written previously on our blog about what to look for in a good competence scheme. Assure360 however does it all for you. The same comprehensive audits are just interpreted in a different way.
The beauty of this is that you have already done the work. So instead of one more job that your overstretched team are asked to do – it is a matter of moments.
In my experience when helping a licence holder prepare for the HSE, the one thing that they are least confident with is exposure monitoring. Often there has been plenty of ‘personals’ done (though sometimes not). Sometimes these are compiled into an Excel spreadsheet, though often not. When asked ‘how are these used?’ it is frequently met with a pregnant pause.
In some ways, the LARCs have been led up an exposure monitoring blind alley. People in asbestos removal often only have a vague understanding of what exposure monitoring is for (you can read more on this in my earlier article here). They get provided with dozens of 10-minute ‘personals’ that tell us next to nothing. The feeling of ‘what is the point of this beyond keeping the HSE happy?’ has some justification.
The approach that Assure360 has transforms every personal monitoring test into an assessment of how successful the method was.
With 360, ‘the point’ is clear – it has a direct impact on the improvement of methods.
Assure360 is specifically designed to address all the challenges I have identified in my nearly 25 years in the industry. For the past two years, it has been helping LARCs improve themselves and with that, the industry.
Ken Johnson from Delta Service recently told me: “The moment I saw the system demonstrated I knew it was an absolute must for us. It ticked so many boxes – all the areas that the entire industry seems to struggle with.”
The central theme is simplicity, Assure360 is a system, one that you follow, implement and operate yourself. Just by doing so you gain greater understanding of the management of your company. You operate it yourself (no expensive consultants) and everyone contributes – this simultaneously saves money and strengthens your health and safety culture.
To find out more how we can help, contact us today on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Wednesday May 24th 2017
The Assure360 app collects a huge amount of data and this gives us unique insight into the issues our peers in the safety industry tackle during site audits and tech reviews.
Our app is the only community audit and compliance tool available for the asbestos removal and construction industry. With more than one hundred safety professionals using the system – so far they’ve completed more than 2000 audits – we are developing real insight into the challenges and issues our clients and peers face and overcome. As a result, Assure360 has the power to genuinely improve the construction industry.
The Assure360 system incorporates site audits and also records tech reviews during the planning stage. This allows managers to learn from common issues picked up by their peers – before the project goes live.
We regularly share the community’s findings with our army of independent auditors through our customer newsletter (you can sign up to this at the bottom of this page). Here is a taster of the most recent findings we shared covering audits and site reviews from January 2017.
If we look at the overall top 10 we see predominantly paperwork issues, that either are, or can be identified during peer reviews:
The top 10 list looks like this:
Whilst there are some favourites here, Risk assessments (site specific) indicates that the auditors are trying to come to grips with that age-old problem of generic risk assessments. Assure360 will automatically record this with an action to identify and resolve the underlying issues.
Whilst on the surface – ASB5 (present and accurate) seems alarming, I am aware that this is being used to track when teams are not on site when they should be.
Assure360 allows us to drill down and identify issues faced by supervisors. This allows the teams to address targeted issues within supervisor meetings, rather than allowing company wide concerns to cloud the issue:
The top 10 for supervisors looks like this:
Again, for supervisors there are some familiar hurdles to overcome. But some surprising issues are being targeted as well. Vehicle inspections – when taken together – is the most common issue.
Similarly, contracts managers can focus on their challenges:
The top 10 issues for contracts managers are:
How does this data compare with your own audits? Do you have a tool that can help you monitor and tackle these issues, saving you time and money and keeping everyone on the project up to speed?
Let us know what kind of data you’d be interested in seeing and book a demo.
Written by Nick Garland on Thursday April 27th 2017
The data shows that the licence terms awarded to asbestos contractors have reduced year on year. But in my view, standards in our industry are improving. So what’s going on? And is there a a better way forward for asbestos licensing?
A phrase every LARC will be familiar with, as it seems to be in all letters written by the HSE. One of the principle purposes of such a regime is:
“…maintaining and improving standards of health and safety”
The Health and Safety Commission permissioning regime policy statement
Maintain and improve standards of H&S, presumably by weeding out the incompetent and promoting best practice. But why then are average licence terms shorter now than they were? I have been in the asbestos industry since the early 1990s, and I’ve definitely noticed the change. Can we infer that the HSE’s opinion is that the industry is less safe and less competent than it was?
Licence assessments can be a very unpredictable time. All of the companies that I work with have heard of, or experienced extremely intense assessment interviews, but at the same time hear of laissez faire ones with very little detailed examination. Requests (demands) from the ALPIs is often insightful but can also be bizarrely arbitrary, with little practical application. One licence assessment ended up insisting that filing cabinets be used (rather than the perfectly acceptable system the LARC already had) – resulting in the conversion of the one and only meeting room into an archive room.
We all know anecdotally that it has become harder and harder to get the ‘full’ three-year licence from the HSE, but the latest figures are quite stark.
ALG figures, supplied by ACAD.
ALG figures, supplied by ACAD.
Excluding new licences (always one year) there has been an alarming drop of 23% in three-year licences issued in that period.
ALG figures, supplied by ACAD.
In my experience the industry, whilst there are some bad eggs, is getting much better. When I think back to the beginning of my career, where it seemed everyone had a three-year licence – the differences are remarkable. Now projects consider the wider job and recognise non-asbestos hazards. In fact, it seems a different industry with most of the stories of astonishing individual poor practice in the past.
So, if we are not getting any worse and the principle aim of a permissioning regime is to drive standards, why are the licence terms going down?
Could it simply be that there are less licensed contractors out there and the HSE want to exert more control. A tighter leash if you like? Certainly, the tone of some licence assessments and HSE visits indicate this.
The HSE tell the wider construction industry (and clients) that they shouldn’t use the licence term as a tool for selection. If the company has been given a licence (any licence) that indicates that they (the HSE) are satisfied and this should be good enough. The clients however (quite reasonably) take the view that well if you are concerned enough that you won’t give them a 3-year licence, then we are concerned too.
A licence holder can’t notify a project that extends beyond the licence expiry date.
We add then that the HSE publish the expiry date of licences – so if you track these things, you can plot a company’s standing. A client also instantly sees which companies can notify the project that they are considering. This might not seem a big concern, but very complex major works, might require 2+ years to complete – knocking out 65% of contractors.
With this in mind – are the HSE less inclined to reduce the term for a huge company? Do they back away when a downward tweak might stop a multi-million £ job in a power station? Certainly ‘the word’ is that they do.
The licence term is certainly a commercial driver.
In my opinion the HSE should remove the fixed term licence. The HSE should assess a company and give, or withhold a licence based on the interview and past performance during site visits. These licences should not expire (I hear howls of outrage).
What should replace it is a tailored review schedule for that specific contractor. Essentially, ‘Yes we are content for you to work with asbestos, but we want to see you again in 6 months, or 12 months or 3 years, just to make sure things stay on track’. A structured plan could therefore be put in place on what improvements must be implemented before the next monitoring visit.
The monitoring schedule would not be published and would not appear on the licence itself. This therefore could not be used for contractor selection. The pressure would be released from the HSE to grant 3 year licences for commercial reasons. There would be no issue of notifying jobs beyond the end of the licence expiry date – as there won’t be one. The HSE can concentrate on maintain and improving standards and do so in a much more structured way.
As I say this is an opinion piece, and I would welcome everyone’s thoughts and feedback.
I have been in the asbestos industry since the early 1990s, helping licensed asbestos removal contractors stay at the forefront of the industry.
Let me know what you think. Drop me a line using the email at the bottom of this page.
Written by Nick Garland on Monday June 27th 2016
The draft guidance that was doing the rounds last year on blasting techniques (whether that is Quill, Torbo or ice) has now been released as ALG meeting minutes, rather than a full ALG Memo. I am not too sure on where that places it in the regulatory framework, but it is clearly guidance that shouldn’t be ignored. There a few changes to the February 2015 draft that prompted my original summary.
The following piece is an update on the main points to be aware of.
The memo starts with the recognition that blasting may be required in a few rare occasions, but also declares that the process should only be considered as a last resort and not a go-to silver bullet. It also insists that the use of the process (above other more traditional approaches) must be fully justified by the licensed contractor, with evidence in support. What this translates to is that the method must not merely address and mitigate the significant additional hazards, but that the reasons for introducing them in the first place are declared and justified:
Clients are normally the main driver as to why blasting is being considered (“I want an asbestos free building”). It would therefore be wise to involve them in the decision process, explore whether the reasons for that desire outweigh the added hazards and ultimately justify why it is required. The guidance states that robust processes should be in place to ‘prevent misuse’. Or put another way – review of the justification and sign off by senior management. The technique must also be declared on the ASB5.
The guidance suggests the following controls:
** Wet Vacs may be problematic guidance as they do not typically have HEPA filters but the moisture in the ‘garnet’ will damage a standard vac.
These controls will considerably increase time, plant and materials and with them costs. It is difficult to imagine a client stomaching the substantial increase.
I can almost hear the echo of ‘It’s only guidance’, which it is, but the imperative is to implement something equivalent or better and the suggested controls are quite specific and difficult to argue against. As it must be declared on the ASB5, the likely increased chance of an enforcement visit will mean that Ignoring the document will be a high risk card game with your license as the stake.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
Written by Nick Garland on Monday September 28th 2015
Transiting is the simple process that operatives follow to exit an enclosure. It is the moment where they remove PPE and if they get it wrong, expose themselves to increased asbestos. It is therefore critical. However, when I audit removal projects in the UK, I often come across an almost wilful disregard of this guidance. The poor procedure is reinforced by large training providers (I am thinking of one in particular) that actively train incorrect procedure to delegates.
The guidance is clear:
So why do over 10% of audits completed by myself and others (using my Assure360 system), record instances of PPE removed in the dirty stage or even in the enclosure itself?
The reasons we hear from the individual operatives, supervisors and their management, typically include ‘well you wouldn’t want to take all that contamination to the outside’ or ‘well the middle stage is a buffer’ or most common of all ‘well I went on a training course last week and they told me…’. All of these demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding as to why the guidance was written as it was.
Correct risk assessment at the moment of transiting should tell us quite clearly who is most at risk – the operative. Therefore what is transiting for? The primary purpose is to ensure that an operative exits a hazardous environment safely. It has a secondary purpose – to ensure that in exiting, – that hazardous environment stays confined. The dirty stage (it’s nick name is such for a reasons) is the most hazardous part of the airlock system, so why should we be asking operatives to remove any PPE here? Removing PPE in the enclosure is clearly slightly insane.
If we lose sight of who is most at risk, it would allow us to think that the secondary purpose is the main one. On the shaky foundations of this ignorance and with the confidence that ‘well it’s only guidance’ brings, we get the poor procedures we so often see.
If the primary purpose was indeed keeping the hazardous environment confined, whilst allowing workers to exit – then a buffer zone or sacrificing PPE early to keep ‘us civilians’ safe, seems sensible.
My frustration, as a professional, comes when major training companies, who frankly should know better, actively teach removal of overalls in the dirty stage of the airlock, sometimes they even council throwing them back into the enclosure. This is directly apposed to guidance and demonstrates a lack of understanding and competence in the trainer. I know of several examples where the employer has designed the correct (guidance led) transit procedures – only to find that their employees have been de-trained at great expense. This misleading training undermines the company’s efforts to protect its workers and potentially induces enforcement action.
I therefore challenge the industry as a whole and training providers in particular to reconsider transiting in light of what it is actually for – protecting the employee.
Find out how we can help you with asbestos waste management – call us on 0845 226 4318
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 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