Posted By Lorna Barrett Good afternoon all, hope all is well! I was wondering if anyone could help me, I am a qualified and experienced consultant with limited experience in relation to construction. WHile I frequently deal with sole traders, such as electricians, plumbers etc., I have never dealt with an actual building contractor! I now have one on my books, and I am looking to develop a SOP in relation to his JCB Digger. I was wondering if anyone would have any such info, or know a site which is useful? I have searched through web by Google and have come up with nothing... Thanks in advance

Posted By Lorna Barrett Dave, Many thanks for your reply. Contractor is a sole trader working on his own and has a side line of digging holes for septic tanks in rural ireland under contract for septic tank installers. Without experience it is hard to gain competence.

Posted By Chas You may find information in CITB publication GE700 of use. It's a good document at a reasonable price (in my view). (ps I do not work for CITB)

Posted By Alan Hoskins Lorna, Step 1: Before digging a hole, check for underground services. (Oh, and watch out for the cables overhead!) Alan

Posted By Jim Walker Come on folks! Get off Lorna's back. She recognises she needs advice & assistance, in my book that is a big requirement of a competent person. With a bit of back ground information (which she is trying to obtain) , this is hardly rocket science is it? Too much of this sort of thing on the forum, if you have nothing helpful just keep quiet!!

Posted By Paul Bellis Jim I object to your comments I was trying to assist - and pointing her in the right direction -to send an inappropriate SSW or SOP is not the way to go - Whilst not rocket science as you say, there is quite a few considerations -who is using the machine - how it is being used, where it is being used what type of machine as each area presents different hazards etc. Without the person looking at all the facts its impossible to come up with a standard SSW, a competent advisor wouldnt want to anyway which is why she is being steered towards getting the appropriate information to then provide copetent advice Paul.

Posted By Paul Bellis Lorna I wasnt having a go at potential lack of experience -but rather trying as you requested - to point you in theright direction - to assist you in your request for information to produce a SOP I note that you are in NI and the regs are a bit diferent to UK mainland -I presume you have already downloaded http://www.hseni.gov.uk/pdfs/chb.pdf its usefull as a starter to get you off the ground (its nice that NI HSE can provide free documents!) Paul

Posted By Salus Lorna, there is a lot of work involved in this, excavations / buried services / LOLER / PUWER / construction regs / operator competency / moving,lifting and handling loads / whole body vibration /noise / PPE / maybe, i do not know, but some of the work may come under the const,design,management (CDM) regs or the new road and street works act./ others in your clients employ.

Posted By Ron Hunter A significant part of the Safe Operation will be the competence of the Operator(s). In your position, I would advise that the machine operators must pass CITB accredited training (and attend refersher assessment) on the machine in question. (I'm assuming CITB operates in NI!). In my experience, operators attending such training would be best placed to help you develop the SOP! Whilst you will find a wealth of HSE guidance on the topic, priced CITB publications will probably provide you with more specific information. You could also think about attending an accredited Construction Supervisors Course in your region to increase your knowledge and expertise in this work area? Don't forget routine and scheduled maintenance and servicing of the machine.

Posted By Catman Hi Lorna Totally agree. It has always been my opinion that we are there to take our safety brains, add them to the process brain (JCB Driver, Chef or whatever) and together come up with the safe answer. Indeed, we must know our limitations and not try to advise where we are totally out of our depth, but I always find that getting the bod who is doing the job to supply most of the info, then adding the GS/indutry guidance stuff generally produces a more usable and used document, than a seven page tome produced over 3 days by a superdupersafetyexpert at his desk. Small businesses cant afford consultants to do the whole thing for them, they need to learn to do it themselves, hence the need for people like you, to go hold their hand. TW

Posted By Lorna Barrett Hi Catman, many thanks for your reply, If I give this guy a 15 pager on his digger he would laugh at me and ask for his money back. I want to help him be safe and comply with the law, he is not a huge construciton company he is one guy doing the odd hole for domestic houses every now and again. As i said it is JCB who are the experts, I am meerly the link to the law and compliance with same

Posted By Advanced Safety Lorna If you contact me direct, i will send a couple of simple generic templates for groundworks. It will at least be a starting block.

Posted By Dave McIness I'm astounded by many of the responses on this thread. Whilst I applaud those offering assistance to a fellow practitioner I have to question the reason why some many are providing such information to someone who clearly states that they are not competent in this particular field. I do not mean to have a dig (excuse the pun) at Lorna, who I am sure is perfectly competent working in her normal workplace environments, but the number of times I have seen so called Safety Professionals on my construction sites incorrectly advising their sub-contractor clients on safe working procedures is worryingly high. If you are to advise on construction safety issues, you MUST have construction knowledge as well as H&S knowledge, you can't have just one or the other. Contrary to many of the comments on this site, I actually find it refreshing that the HSE have not listed IOSH in the new CDM guidance, in the way that they have named other organisations. It is about time that people started to realise that to be a competent construction safety advisor, you need much more than just an IOSH membership certificate. I am sure that many will disagree, but I have experienced the mistakes and incompetence of such advisors on far too many occasions!

Posted By Advanced Safety oop! forgot to say sorry for drifting away from the original subject.

Posted By Anthony Slinger Dave McInnis wrote “the number of times I have seen so called Safety Professionals on my construction sites incorrectly advising their sub-contractor clients on safe working procedures is worryingly high.” I wonder how many of them identified a gap in their knowledge and then asked for help on a professional H&S forum? As long as you research a subject you are not 100% and making sure the advice is correct (by asking others, for example), I believe, is a good way to competence. Working with one man and is JCB seems like a good place to start getting construction experience. I wouldn’t think Lorna would go from this project on to something like Terminal 5. Lorna, I think there is enough for you to be getting on with without me adding anything constructive (‘scuse the pun). I can think back to the time when a Client has asked me if I knew anything about DSEAR. I did not know too much, however, a bit of reading, a bit of training, talking to the plant engineers, cross referencing and getting the experience I now feel pretty competent to advise in the same industry again (a bit like doing a NEBOSH Diploma assignment!) Probably deserves another thread, but what astounds me more on this forum is when people ask a question to increase their competence and the replies open with “I am no expert/don’t know much about this but…”

Posted By Lorna Barrett Good morning Tony/Anthony/all Hope everything is well with ye this morning. I really appreciate all yer help and advise I really do, I didnt mean to cause so much tension on the site! Like you Tony I often advise clients on FLTs / Lorries, etc and I wouldnt have a notion of their operation at all. I am going to start constructing SOP and generic RA this evening.. at all times I will make sure the client is aware he has an obligation to have a design stage and construction stage (if applicable) plan and supervisor engaged before the project begins. Thanks again for all the help and support. Lorna

Posted By Dan Lynch As I read all the responses to this thread a number of questions spring to mind. Are we really competent to do our job all the time? Whatever type of industry you work in you will not have the work experience or worked in the field that you are advising in? A typical Safety Professional in their career will work in many companies having first worker in one of the engineering or administrative roles. I started working in the wood industry but that does not mean that I have to stay working in that industry for the rest of my career. Once a safety professional understands the legal requirements for Safety Statements/Policies/Safety Management Systems/safety progremmes/etc and can use the experience of the person that they are working for to develop risk assessments, then is that OK? Is that not how we do it all the time. When I am doing a risk assessment on a piece of equipment I speak to the operator and the maintenance technician as they are the people that used it day to day and can tell you more about it that 10 safety professionals looking at the equipment for a week. Getting back to the comments that you can only give advice on a subject if you have only worked in the industry, how many of the male members of the safety profession have completed a pregnancy risk assessment? We, as members of the male gender ( and I am not being sexist ) cannot understand the strains both emotional and physical that pregnancy puts on the body. So what do the do, we ask that opinion of the person that we are doing the assessment on. Lorna, Remember that the drive of the JCB will have to his FAS CSCS as well as Safe Pass for working on site Regards, Dan