Posted By Salus Paul, why would you want to?. Clients, PC's or their subbies should be employing competant persons only. Don't make hard work for yourself or your contractors, just follow the NASC guidelines, WAH regs and the contruction regs

Posted By Frank Hallett Paul - I suspect that you are already aware that the duties of the Designer in CDM can be very easily applied to those who design a scaffold in exactly the same way as the duties of the Principal Contractor can and are applied to the entity that organises and should oversee that scaffold design and erection. Watch the HSE web-site for hints about the CDM consultation and where it might go now. Frank Hallett

Posted By Brian Dunckley Paul Their is nothing to stop your organisation having a policy that requires all scaffolding supplied to have calculations and a drawing, this will ensure that you have some knowledge of what is being supplied and provide a check for the inspection prior to handover. You will find it useful to issue a scaffolding specification stating what your requirements are. We have adopted this practice in one company within our organisation and it has made life a lot easier. I came into safety following 16 years as a scaffolding engineer where one major frustration was clients who did not know what they required the scaffold for. Brian

Posted By ian mcnally Hi Paul, I was actually looking for info on satellite navigation policies but couldn’t resist to chip in when I saw your posting. Clearly you are already aware the WAHR and probably schedule 3 part 2, where; Additional requirements for scaffolding requires; 7. Strength and stability calculations for scaffolding shall be carried out unless – (a) a note of the calculations, covering the structural arrangements contemplated, is available; or (b) it is assembled in conformity with a generally recognised standard configuration. It would have been reasonable in the past perhaps to consider the old BS5973 as such standard configuration but this we know was replaced back in 2004 by the EN12811. This, among other things requires unimpeded access and simplistically to do so needs the ledger bracing removed and so needs to be strengthened in some other way. As a result, the NASC produced TG20, a good document I thought. Mind you, I haven’t seen many contractors comply with it yet, I do accept that it is only guidance and not law. In fact, one scaffolder working for us told me a couple of months ago that they had been told by the HSE that they could still follow the old BS5973? I rang an HSE sector specific inspector who confirmed this was their position although has not yet formally replied to my request for clarification via email. I still insisted that calculations were provided much to the annoyance of the contractor who will no doubt try to charge us extra. This is where things get a little interesting. There has been a great deal of debate between the HSE and NASC, as a result the NASC published only last week the following……..take a look at this link. http://www.nasc.org.uk/latestnews.shtml So having read all this it would appear the current view is possibly; the old BS5973 will still be acceptable in compliance with the WAHR but only providing we amend tie patterns and additional bracing (so the BS5973 in it’s current form won’t really do after all then?) ………and over the medium term migration to EN12811 is sought – what does that mean? No mention of the unimpeded access problem? Clear as mud eh.! I wonder if the outcome of the Milton Keynes investigation will change things? My advice for an employer who is erecting complex scaffolding or anything over 3 lifts high would be to get those calculations which are a legal requirement after all! Best of luck. Ian

Posted By Liam Mc Conalogue Paul, I see why you would proceed with caution after MK, but this firm was already "red carded" by the HSE. I would take all reasonable steps when appointing a sub-contractor to ensure that they are fully competent to carry out their duties safely, which can be checked easily enough. If you get into the calculations you will need to be there to monitor them from start to finish and even then when someone removes an item here or there, which lets face it does happen, the calculations will have been affected. You could have quite a job on your hands if you go down this road but if you do I would be interested in hearing how it went regarding time and costs. Liam