Posted By Exdeeps Good Afternoon All, I know what I want to do, but it's 2pm on Saturday..... I've just walked past my local shops and watched a painter touching up the windows of a local office. 2nd floor from a scaffold. Problem is the scaffold is boarded to allow access to the 3rd floor and the guy I was watching was crossing from transom to transom in trainers without any form of fall protection or boarding etc. Now I could have gone and had a chat with the guys working but I reckon the best I could have expected was a less that polite invitation to push off. I could contact the office occupants on Monday (Solicitors no less) I could contact the HSE, either by e mail (10 days response according to the web site) or I could wait until monday and phone. Or I could contact both the occupants and the HSE on Monday? So, should I have at least tried to discuss the issue with the guy at the time, should I just send an e mail to the HSE or should I phone 1st thing Monday? By the way, I nipped home and grabbed my digital SLR for a couple of phots, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Oh, another question occurs, if I choose to let others have a copy of the phots, do I need to protect the occupiers name (Sign is visible in a couple of shots) and do I need to protect the scaffold co's name, again sign visible in the pictures? Jim

Posted By db Alternatively you could look at 98% of scaffolding around the country on small jobs such as this and realise that these guys are trained and know what they should be doing but choose not to. They're not going to say "Oh, thanks mate. I didn't realise. You have a nice day". And what if they did fall? You could kid yourself and think that by talking to HSE, their employer or the client will have any effect on their behaviour. You could feel guilty that you didn't do anything but you will not change his attitude. He may stop but he'll carry on at the next job. It's the enforcing authority's responsibility to enforce. It's not yours just because you have some knowledge of what he should be doing. Would you flag down a passing motorist who is using a mobile to tell him off? No. It's the police's job.

Posted By MT If it was a solicitor's office, then this would fall within the remit of the Local Authority for enforcement, not the HSE, and therefore you should contact an EHO or H&S Authorised Officer within the LA. They should then go and talk with the solicitors regarding their procedures for the control of their contractors, and they can also take action against the contractor if they are still on site and the Officer can see a clear breach of regulations.

Posted By MT I agree that it is the enforcing authority's job to enforce and I don't think the original poster would dispute that either, but I think he was asking if he should report it to the enforcing authority. As an LA officer, I am always grateful to people who take the time to bring situations such as this to my attention. I cannot be everywhere all of the time, as my work includes towns which are at least a one hour drive from my base, and unless someone phones and tells me about these things, I can do nothing about them. I would always advise members of the public, H&S practitioners or not, to report something which worries them.

Posted By Pete48 Exdeeps, I think the reality is that you are unlikely to be able to prevent immediate danger in these circumstances. If you try to intervene directly, you might often put yourself at a very obvious risk of personal danger. There is also the point that it is just as likely that those carrying out the work feel they have no option rather than a cynical lack of regard to safety. The scaffold ahould have been in place but it has been moved for the next phase and no-one told their boss. What impact is there on your personal professional iability if you advise them to stop work because that is what you would be doing? What you can and should do is to make sure that you think about doing your bit towards preventing a recurrence and that is where your report to either the company or the enforcement agency comes in. If more safety professionals made such reports more regularly and frequently we might just get everyone to realise the true extent of poor safety in our workplaces. What about the guys who use angle grinders to cut up paving slabs or paviours. No hearing protection, no dust controls, no public controls. Can you imagine the looks I got the other day when I arrived at a bus stop and then almost immediately moved away at the same time telling people why I was moving away? Nobody else moved, their choice and perhaps they could no longer hear me or maybe just thought it was one of those TV programmes where they set people up to ridicule them? I reported my concerns. Perhaps if another 20 people had done the same thing, the response from the enforcers would have been more explicit? Do I report everything I see? No, of course not, just the ones where there is clear and evident danger.