Posted By Robert S Woods
Any comments on the following:

Should dates of legislation be included in policies for smaller companies?

This subject cropped up in a discussion with a group of H&S professionals, who expressed differing opinions.

The argument against including dates was that it would be unrealistic for smaller employers to keep up to date with minor changes in legislation. The date of the enactment or revision of a piece of legislation was immaterial as long as the employer was “working to the spirit” of the legislation.

Posted By Geoff Burt
We used to put dates until last year - which is what the question is referring to.

We stopped doing it because of mainly one instance, but also because of the inconvenience to clients having to reissue policies for very minor date changes.

An over zealous Safety Officer (our client was a sub-contractor to his company) refused to accept any of our clients documentation until COSHH 1999 had been changed to COSHH 2002. In his opinion it showed ignorance of new legislation.

Also changing a policy because of one or two date changes can be quite onerous on a client. A substantial amount of paperwork can be involved, signatures may need to be obtained. The old copy has to be archived.

All in all it seemed, and seems, better to leave the dates off.

Geoff

Posted By John Allen
I didn't suggest changing the policy to update references but that the update should take place at the biennial revision. At this point the policy should be under review to take account of other changes which have taken place, then re-issued with signature of the managing director or whoever is responsible for safety.

If a wrong date is querried by anyone you can point to your revision process to sweep up the changes. No extra work is required over that which already should be carried out.

Posted By Ron Hunter
Avoid dates, and where possible, avoid reference to legislation!
Surely Policy Statements have no real need to refer to any specific legislation?
Who are the intended readers of your Policies, Procedures and Arrangement Documents? Surely your employees and others, who don't need to know about legislation, but do need to know their employer's standards and methods of compliance?
I personally think littering company documents with legislative references isn't big, and isn't clever. Surely the purpose is to engage, stimulate, inform and instruct others, not pass a NEBOSH exam or impress others with our 'specialist' knowledge?
Keep it real, and please don't write a Policy Statement which is only 'copy' of the Health & Safety Law Poster,the HSE won't be overly impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted By John Allen
Safety policies are written for a wide variety of audiences. The most important is the person at work. They need to know what the company’s intent is and how it is going to be carried into effect. A good document will do this. But why have a policy in the first place? Most people have them because the law requires it. (How many companies had policies before 1975?)

A good document will also be properly referenced and that includes references to the correct legislation and other supporting documentation eg procedures, other company policy, guidance, trade specific material. Nowadays the policy statement is generally only the introduction to a more detailed description of the company’s safety management system. References need to be accurate and kept up to date, as they would be in any other document the diligent company produces.

Our job is to protect the health and safety of people at work or who might be affected by work activities. We also have a secondary responsibility to prevent our employers or clients from being prosecuted. As I said before, like it or not we work within a legal framework and there is no excuse for inaccuracy in this area as any other.