Posted By Neil Pearson An HSE colleague notified me yesterday that a Consultative Doc has finally come out for the Work at Height Regulations. http://www.hse.gov.uk/consult/condocs/cd192.htm They are quite detailed, and I wondered what people think. Does this indicate an end to the principle of goal-oriented legislation, and less prescriptive requirements? The idea that the Management Regs ought to be able to achieve everything?

Posted By Stuart Nagle Neil. I though the guidance notes in the CD were quite good, and could even have been written more a 'a guide to' rather than 'guidance on' a set of regulations. I am sure they have got it about right, as work at height is an area that is often not carried out as safely as it could be. One only has to read of the volume of falls from height and through roofs etc to realise this. I saw the document as giving direction and information rather than being too presciptive, but as regulations they would need to state what is required, and I think this has been aptly achieved in the most part.

Posted By Neil Pearson I agree with you all in that I can't see anything in the Regs to disagree with. I just wonder why the Regs are necessary, when they just regurgitate accepted good practice. Why are the Management Regs combined with accepted practice not enough? It was a great theory, that we would move away from detailed law and concentrate on the management issues, but somehow it doesn't work in practice, and so we keep getting more specific Regs like these. When I said "prescriptive" in my initial post, I really meant "specific". I don't think they try to be too prescriptive, I just don't understand why we still need such detailed law.

Posted By Jay Joshi The regs are to transpose the Temporary Work at Height Directive (2001/45/EC). Specifically, it is Directive 2001/45/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 amending Council Directive 89/655/EEC concerning the minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment by workers at work (second individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) The HSE/HSE had a choice of implementing it by:- Changes to existing regulations, i.e. The Construction (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1996 and the Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 and PUWER 98 or go for a stand alone set of regulations that deals with working at heights. Due to the number of fatalities and injuries caused by working at heights, they opted for the latter. Those who comply with existing law will not have to do much! Our membership of the EC has means that we have to transpose EC directives into our legislation, but it also gives us an opportunity to review our legislation.