One of our offices recently had Cat1 findings on an electrical inspection report (no earth, apparently) and bare wires in the lift shaft. Safe as houses, John

The organisation that I work for has labs where we work with lots of really nasty chemicals and other stuff. We also have staff doing all sorts of work out in the field on moors, on cliffs and other hair-raising stuff. Do I worry about this? NO because this is largely done by professionals who know and understand the risks because they do their risk assessments. And if they have problems they consult our team. No the issues I have is the office wallahs who are always injuring themselves, having problems with DSE and the worst injury I ever had to deal with was when some muppet from finance left a file out in our document store and a fellow employee tripped over it. The poor woman had to give up work and had major surgery on her shoulder. It was touch and go if she was going to lose her arm. She didn't she was lucky. Offices safest workplace on Earth and don't talk to me about stress.

You don't you just need to review it to ensure all actions have been completed and if nothing else has changed then just add a comment to that affect and sign it off. I believe offices are comparatively safer than building site, highways and manufacturing. It's not often i have read that an office work was run down by a dumper truck or fallen through a skylight yes accident will happen in any environment but likelihoods and the severity is going to lower than other working environments. Or you must work in one hell of a bad office if you think your accident statistics are going to be equal to a building site. Phil

The Issue here is of perception: Offices are safe. Building sites are dangerous. This is not really the case- it’s just that offices are easier to manage than building sites. There are fewer opportunities for staff to injure themselves in an office than on a building site. The culture in most building sites is “get the job done s quickly as possible”. It’s a dynamic environment, what was safe practice one day is not safe today ( it might have rained overnight, roadways may have had to be moved, new subbies on site). This does not mean that that it cannot managed safely and most of the bigger contractors I have dealt with are honestly trying to do their best. The worse problems are the smaller firms who seem to cut corners. There seems to be a certain amount of machismo in parts of the H&S profession, where some people in building and manufacturing think what it’s really about, is getting guys to wear hard hats etc. The rest; the offices etc, isn’t real H&S. People can and do get injured in all sorts of businesses. Long term illness can occur due to working in all sorts of environments. The beauty of the UK’s H&S systems is that it aims to make sure all workers are treated equally, with the same standards applied everywhere. Of course enforcement resources should be concentrated where the biggest risks are: construction, farming etc but it would be wrong to deny workers who are perceived of as working in a “safe” place, their share of protection.

All of which can be managed by maintenance contractors or cleaners (facilities management)i wouldn't say the above are H&S risks or hazards but things that need maintaining or servicing the same as you might have in your own home but you don't employee a health and safety processional take care of these issue facilities management would be more suited to the above list. Why I'm not saying offices don't pose a risk to employees they would be limited and with out the complexity of a building site, farm or manufacturing company and certainly most would be reasonable foreseeable and wouldn't differ much from one office block to the next. I'm sure there are some on here who have to manage both office and non-office environment the greater deal of their time should be taken up with non-office type, all though office environment tends to be the squeaky wheel. Phil

Well said.

Phil, You can call it FM or not, in our case we are a Charity and do not outsource our FM. But in any case, the employer has the duty of care for electrical safety, environmental safety and so on, so even if it's outsourced to an FM outfit there still needs to be proper checks in place. And it's certainly not all FM. FM will not manage your fire safety for you. Sure, they will count the extinguishers and ease your door closers, but they won't stop people dropping their shopping in the middle of the aisle, or piling reams of paper in front of the extinguisher. FM will not train your people in the safe use of electrical equipment, or in how to carry out user checks. FM will not stop people eating at the keyboard, or working long hours, or falling downstairs, or overloading multi-plugs (one of the ways people have died in offices), Joh

Phil, Yes, sometimes people do need protecting from themselves; but then, isn't that what behavioural safety is all about? John

No it is not, it about the behaviour of the whole organisation, the way that it is managed for instance. Look at the recent headline case in SHP, carried also in some newspapers, to see an example of what can go wrong in an industrial context. Not just the actual hazard but the behaviour of the owner/manager. Do you think it is as simple as saying the dead man in this case needed protecting from himself?

I haven't suggested that we go back to stone-age times you've taking a comment made in jest out context (note use of LOL) and know quoting it in your argument. sounds like something the papers would do. However i do believe that adults should be able assess everyday situation and act in away as not to cause accident or injury to themselves and others. Providing training courses on how people should sit on a chair or walk down stairs is infuriating and belittles the work of H&S departments across the uk who should be tackling real issues not just the issues that may lead to being sued. Phil

Interesting thread............ One problem that seems to have occurred since 2006 when the FSO was introduced, in the concept of 'automatic' annual FRAs for everything - regardless of risk. Is this what the FSO envisaged? Sometimes it's due to consultants ensuring continued work next year, and sometimes as many enforcing authorities wrongly insist (sorry, recommend) annual reviews for all. Nowhere in the FSO does it say 12m reviews. I would argue that a normal risk office of small to medium in size, with no fire safety engineered solutions could easily go at least 2 years between full reviews, as long as there's a system in place to initiate a review if a building, procedural, HR or other change required it. Obviously high risk commercial - factories and warehouses - may need annual reviews, but what about a family run corner shop which only has a recorded FRA as they've a alcohol licence. Is every 12m reasonable?? Sleeping risks where resi-care or healthcare is supplied should always be at least annually, but domestic flats (low risk common parts) could surely be reduced to 2 years or more (subject to their specific circumstances) I have recently carried out a FRA on some housing (supplied to employees by a company) and determined a 5 year intervals are sufficient (subject the caveats as listed above re initiating an earlier review if necessary). As so often in life, it is sometimes a good thing to think outside the box (whilst continuing to do exactly what the law requires) rather than follow the accepted trend