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Posted By collegebum
Is it a legal requirement for an employer to conduct regular risk assessments and complete a safety statement for any risks they identify?
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Posted By FAH
YES!
To make it easy - see Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations.
It's not Friday again is it?
Frank Hallett
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Posted By Glyn Atkinson
This may be an honest question from someone visiting the site who is not a safety related person.
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
I think they got a frank answer...:)
Indeed, it is a legal requirement to provide risk assessments for certain activities. For general activities in the workplace the duty would be as per reg 3 of MHSWR, otherwise there are specific duties for substances (COSHH) manual handling operations, fire risk assessments, display screen equipment and so on.
Ray
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Posted By Ron Hunter
The employer is required to conduct suitable and sufficient risk assessment of all significant tasks and activities within his undertaking, yes; however the "regular" part would apply more to a review process.
There is NO legal requirement to provide a "safety statement" for identified risks, although some may be best covered by further formal processes such as method statement, permit to work, standard operation procedure, etc.
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Posted By Peter Tanczos
Fully agree with FAH & Ron Hunter - It all comes under MHSWR - Reg 3.
Employer must make a Suitable & sufficient Risk Assessment for ALL risks arising from his/her work activities. (must be written for 5+ employees)
RA shall be reviewed if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or there has been a significant change in the circumstances.
The 'Safety statement' shouldn't be necessary because a Suitable & Sufficient Risk Assessment will identify the Control Measures and assess their adequacy.
Don't forget; Risk = Hazard + Existing Controls
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Posted By martinw
Just saying it in case it is for a non-H&S person, as the other contributors will know, but the Regulatory Reform(Fire Safety) Order 2005 has explicit requirement for risk assessment(article 9).
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Posted By Peter F.
And the manual handling regs.
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Posted By Manny
Possibly the 1st and last time that collegebum asks a question on this forum! Well done FAH for scaring him off.
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Posted By Swis
Spot on Ray...
Also
I can't see any offence in Frank's response. If collegebum is new to the forum he wouldn't have a clue about 'Friday' comments so shouldn't take it offensively..If he's a regular participant then ..spot on Frank...
In both cases others making it a big issue for nothing.
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Posted By Manny
Writing in YES in uppercase is like saying "I don't believe that someone is asking such a pathetic question".
At least it is now Friday.
Manny
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Posted By Phil Rose
Lets give Frank a bit of a break, he fired one a bit from the hip, as many of us do from time to time but his post looks sincere to me and I am sure he did not mean any offence.
I do wonder if 'collegebum' is UK though.
Aside from MHSWR, many regs are goal setting and require some form of risk assessment to be carried out inc PPE, First aid etc. Arguably following the judgement in E vs NCB so does S2
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Posted By Manny
Sorry Frank. It's been a long week.
Manny
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Posted By FAH
For those who so stoutly defended my initial response - I thank you for your goodwill & unsolicited support; I greatly value that.
For those whom I inadvertently offended by my rather terse response - the offence was definitely not intentional.
Collegebum, I trust that your initial question has been adequately answered and that you haven't been dissuaded from using this forum again.
However, just to ensure that you have the most relevant responses - could you please identify just which part of the world you happen to be working in?
Frank Hallett
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Posted By Karen Todd
A Safety Statement is a legal requirement in Ireland.
KT
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Karen,
I'm interested in the definition applied to "safety statement" in Irish Law - can you share that?
Also, is there a UK "equivalent" to the Irish Regs linking back to the EU Directive?
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Thanks for that Karen. S20 of the Irish legislation would appear then to translate in the UK to our HASAWA requirement for a more "general" Policy Statement - this not the same thing in terms of risk assessment and risk control in the context of the original post?
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Posted By steve e ashton
Ron:
Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're getting at? For the full text of the 2005 Act, see the irish statute book... (its easily available online)
Section 19 of the 2005 Act contains the obligation to undertake risk assessments (akin to our Mgt Regs obligation but not identical) - Section 20.2(a) of the Act stipulates that the safety statement has to 'Specify the hazards and risks assessed' from Section 19 (and goes even further in stipulating that the statement must specify the manner in which the safety, health and welfare at work of his or her employees shall be secured and managed).
So - yes a safety statement is an Irish requirement. No its not the same as a UK health and safety policy (it's far more presecriptive), and yes, the Irish 2005 Act does require risk assessments, and for these to be recorded. (The 2005 Act does NOT require a general statement of policy!)
So the answer to the original poster is "It depends..." (on where you are working, how your employer interprets the local legal requirements, whether your work could reasonably be assessed as a whole rather than bit by bit, and how quickly things change).
Steve
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Steve, I believe I stand corrected.
As you say, the Irish Act would appear to require a "Safety Statement" to go beyond a Policy Statement of intent and include the organisation and arrangement elements as we in the UK have them in Regulation 5 of the Management Regs. The Irish would seem to have this and other aspects of the EC Framework Directive all wrapped together in one 2005 Act, unlike the UK approach of enacting various seperate Regulations made under our 1974 Act.
In practical terms though, I would suggest the Irish approach should be no more prescriptive than compliance requirements of the various discrete and individual pieces of UK Act and relevant Statutory Provisions. The actual requirements, in practice would appear very similar and not that much more prescriptive.
That said I seem to recall some discussion of the difficulties faced by UK based contractors in meeting the PQQ requirements of Irish Clients. This may be more to do with poor compliance with Reg 5 of our Management Regs by these contractors?
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