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Posted By Lala
My Building Manager wants to endorse long term permits for emergency works which may occur through the night. He says he cannot guarantee a competent member of staff to be called upon to go to site and meet the contractor required to fix the emergency and deal with a permit at the time. He wants a long term permit written with predicted scenarios and predicted controls to ensure the contractor has access to the building.
I am not happy with this. How can you predict an emergency and the controls required?
What do you do to control unforeseen emergency works?
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Posted By John Packer
Do you have a business continuity or disaster recover plan? If so, try looking in there for any emergencies that have been foreseen.
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Posted By Lala
We do have a BCP, but the type of emergencies being referred to are issues such as fire alarm malfunctions at 3am or the computer room Inergen system collapsing, lifts breaking down and so on.
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Posted By John Packer
Difficult to help without being able to put it into context. What is the nature of occupation of the building/s?
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Posted By Lala
Low risk, office based but the possible emergency scenarios are in themselves high risk, permit to work type tasks.
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Posted By John Packer
what are the hours of occupation, or rather, how will you know if the server crashes at 3am?
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Posted By Lala
Security are informed by way of alarm systems or visual checks and ring the repsonsible person for the area who would in turn call out the contractor.
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Posted By GT
Lala, Can I ask why you need a ptw for the office environment?
Is there a radiation / chemical / biological source creating this high risk which requires control measures.
Regards
GT
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Posted By John Packer
Do I take it from your last response that you have a 24/7 security presence on site?
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Posted By Lala
Yes to 24/7 security presence.
Office is low risk but maintenance and engineering tasks are not - e.g electrical or gas isolations, lift maintenance, work at height - roof work. The list of activities undertaken in an office which require a permit to work can be extensive depending on the size of the building but I'm not here to justify the permit system, I need advice as to how to control unforeseen emergency works which do require a permit which occur out of hours.
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Posted By John Packer
In the first instance I'd come up with a list of possible scenario's, choose a suitable service provider to rectify it and then put the onus on them to tell you how they would do it safely.
If I were ever in a position where the emergency was unforeseen and I had to call up a contractor I had no experience of dealing with then I would go into work to liaise with them on-site. A burden admittedly but not one that happens very often.
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Lala
If the emergency work is hazardous enough to require a PTW then it must be issued by a competent person at the time it is required. Issuing permits in advance is surely an abuse of the system. The competent person must not only issue the piece of paper (which will protect no one) but also make sure that the required precautions are taken. In the absence of a representative of your company, who is is going to make sure that the contractor will follow the precautions specified.
Paul
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Posted By Tabs
There are four+ ways to deal:
1. The contractor called in issues their own permit, this will require at least two people to attend usually.
2. Train the Security up to competence, this is the least likely option to be honest.
3. The contractor arrives, makes safe, and departs. The contractor returns when you have a competent person on site to issue a permit.
4. You arrange a call-out system for your competent person, or keep someone on duty on site.
One thing you can't do: pre-issue permits and expect them to protect anyone.
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