Posted By Paul Keeping Peter, You do not say what your qualifications are to provide this competent advice. Assuming that you are competent, which at the end of the day might be tested in court, and that you are being paid for this work, it would be my view that you should have both professional indemnity and public liability insurances. This, of course, is expensive and would be priced into your daily/hourly rate for such jobs. As it is a charity you may be helping them out without payment. If that were the case I believe the colour is a shade greyer. Is there is a lawyer within the forum who might have a view. Paul Keeping

Posted By Andy Lucas Peter, You are right to raise the issue. It is significant that there have been a number of well publicised recent prosecutions of consultants by the HSE. If the advice you give is wrong, amounts to negligence and there is a resultant breach of HASWA Sec 3, then beware, you maybe criminally liable for your actions. Irrespective of that, you will always bear some degree of civil liability for your actions. It's a tough world! Andy