Posted By Malcolm Greenhouse My dynamic C.E. wants a minimalist office environment. To this end he wants the Statutory Health and Safety Notice, the Employees Insurance Notice and the Fire Plan to all be on an electronic notice board which will display them along with other information in rotation. He also intends to place them on the firms intranet in case people want to study them more closely. My question is are these notices supposed to be permanently displayed in law and if so will a scrolling electronic picture of the documents suffice?

Posted By cakey Malcolm, The only problems I can foresee with this method is that I.T. systems do have a tendancy to crash. Re: the scrolling electronic board, how is an employee meant to be able to read the content of the 'H&S Law Poster' if it is continually changing or scrolling?. Regards Cakey

Posted By J Knight Hi Folks, The H&S Info for Employees regs allow for either a poster or a leaflet: they were written in 1989 when the last word in computing sophistication was an Amstrad Joyce and a bulleting board was something with pins in it. So technically you can't put it on the intranet without having some form of paper back-up, either poster or leaflet; but the question you have to ask is just how picky are your enforcers going to be? Has anybody ever been actually prosecuted purely for breach of the Info for employees regs, and how would a judge react if he/she was told 'No your honour, there was no poster hidden by leaflets for pizza delivery firms or taxis, but there was a freely available electronic version of the required information; however, this isn't allowed in law so I contend that the defendant has been very bad and deserves locking up'? John

Posted By J Knight Specifically: '4.—(1) An employer shall, in relation to each of his employees- (a) ensure that the approved poster is kept displayed in a readable condition- (i) at a place which is reasonably accessible to the employee while he is at work, and (ii) in such a position in that place as to be easily seen and read by that employee; or (b) give to the employee the approved leaflet. (2) An employer shall be treated as having complied with paragraph (1)(b) from the date these Regulations come into force or the date the employee commences employment with him (if later) if he gives to the employee the approved leaflet as soon as is reasonably practicable after that date' So no scope at all for electronic info. HSe can revise the form of the information, and maybe they need to since the world has changed rather a lot since 1989, John

Posted By steve e ashton And as for the Employers Liability compulsory insurance: An employer who has been issued with a certificate shall display one or more copies of it, at each place of business at which he employs any relevant employee of the class or description to which such certificate relates. (2) Any relevant certificate which is required to be displayed in accordance with paragraph (1) above, shall be displayed in such number and in such positions and be of such size and legibility that they may be easily seen and read by any relevant employees, and shall be reasonably protected from being defaced or damaged. So yes - it needs to be posted on the wall. In line with other comments: methinks its about time this was updated. Steve

Posted By steve e ashton Merv The cleaning boy (sic) does have access to my computer files. My problem is making sure he doesn't change my passwords without letting me know what he's changed them to.... And the Bulgarian plumber has a satellite web system that would be the envy of NASA. Tho seriously, I understand the need for paper. My concern is that we still aren't allowed, in some fields of endeavour, to make use of available technology to improve communications. But I'm sure you knew that. Steve

Posted By Malcolm Greenhouse Hi Ken You must know my CE because yes we are into paperless offices and hot desking. Just spent a fortune on kitting out a new office but to be fair it is an attempt to change the culture of the organisation. Lets hope the new culture includes a positive approach to safety.

Posted By J Knight There's a kind of deeper side to this as well. I mean; who reads the things anyway? If the info on them is important (and I'm not sure it always is), surely there are better ways of presenting it than on a huge poster that nobody reads? John

Posted By Ken Taylor There can be a naive assumption that change is always for the better. Some of us have been around long enough to see the various management theories come and go and then come back again with a different name. I've seen fortunes wasted on centralisation followed by decentralisation followed by..., etc. I've been sent on all sorts of courses to placate political masters in local government whilst funds have been cut to provide essential services and necessary training - including health and safety. I've seen requirements for endless recording of time spent on work activity at the expense of having time to do the job. I've seen every service having to charge the other services within the organisation for what they do for them - with considerable additional administrative cost and oncosts that could have been spent on the actual job and departments not accepting health and safety training because it will cost them. I could go on - but will spare you that - except to say that I have been in a management position too - which I take to involve understanding people, listening to them, respecting their professionalism, consulting on any ideas for change, letting them get on with the job whilst holding them accountable for doing so, etc and certainly not imposing blanket theories in order to appear impressive.