Hi everyone, I am currently studying NGC and have been asked by a friend that owns a taxi/private hire office for help, he has asked me to give the premises the once over just to make sure there is nothing that would contravene section 2/3 as all the staff are self employed and the public only have access to a waiting area at the front of the office with a coffee machine, with the drivers and telephonists being self employed, would I be right in classing them as contractors/sub-contractors? would they class as employee's for the purpose of the five or more employees for the purpose of having to have a written policy? The reason for this is that the Local Authority have sent a letter advising that they will be coming to inspect the premises shortly as they have never been visited before and have also sent a self assessment questionaire to be returned to them, I am presuming that depending on the answers will dictate how quick they get a visit. I think this could open a little can of worms as I have been in many taxi offices over the years and would say that work would need to be done in many of them to bring them up to scratch. I look forward to your help and comments. Wishing you all a merry christmas and happy new year. Thanks Pete

No need to worry about what HASAWA Sections apply, worry about checking/making it safe

Cbrpete, are you really qualified to be giving advice to a company? I think it’s great that you will be getting some live experience however; the fact remains that you are asking such basic questions leads me to believe that you should not be giving advice out to companies. Even if it’s for a friend you can find yourself in a whole heap of issues if enforcement action is taken and you are the one named as giving the advice (even free advice)! Having recently had a client who owned a similar company I noted breaches of the following: – Disability Discrimination Act 1995 – Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974 – Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 (SI 1997 No. 1713) – Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No. 2739) – Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 (SI 2005 No. 1643) – Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 (SI 1989 No. 635) – Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) (SI 1998 No. 2307) – Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 No. 3242) – Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) (SI 1998 No. 2306) – Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992 No. 3004) – The Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998 No. 1833) – Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 – Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 I was not the consultant at the time of the breaches however; the chap that had given advice was under-qualified with little experience. He did it as a favour and landed himself in court! (He was torn to pieces in court by the prosecutor). He was not a consultant, not insured as such and clearly was just doing something to help someone he knew. Please be very careful about any advice you give and the significance of what you are doing. PS. Best of luck for your future exams.

I’d personally think carefully when giving out legal advice. Why doesn’t the company have access to a competent professional as required by current legislation? If the LA officer has stated they are specifically coming out to this business, is it from a complaint and/or concerns they have regarding this business? Pete, do you have professional indemnity insurance to covering giving out legal advice? Rayrapp and Freelance seem to be giving you some good advice!

I agree there needs to be caution applied when offering advice, but this is how i cut my teeth, offering help to friends who ran low risk shops. You have to start somewhere and it helped to get some safety on my CV. Everything I did was free and I explained in all situations I would only guide. I see no harm in pointing someone to the HSE web page, explaining they need a policy and showing them an example risk assessment etc etc. The HSE clearly state most bussiness can do this themselves anyway, so a little pointing in the right direction is all that's needed.

Happy New Year to all, Does this post demonstrate what Young was trying to point out? We have Freelance pointing out that a precedent has already been set by a prosecution in which a person giving advice to a friend ended up in court, being exposed for lack of knowledge though possibly not being prosecuted. Still not an experience you would want to go through. Then you have two Steve's saying "Go for it" which in view of the type of activity is not wrong if we follow the way forward outlined by Young. So you have opposing views and I don't think either is wrong, all have merit. My opinion, is that in your circumstances; 1) I would help point out deficiencies in what the company is doing BUT stipulate clearly that you could not be named as the competent person under Reg 7 of the Management Regulations (L21 available on-line from HSE). If your friend wants you to be the competent person to get them out of a bind then you need to consider what Freelance said very carefully. In your shoes I would not accept that accountability. 2) What I would look at to find deficiencies have been mentioned above but here are some pointers, a) H&S Policy - If the answer from your friend is "don't need a written one" then the question is "State your verbal one then" b) What risk assessments are available e.g. Lone working? Physical Assault? bad weather conditions? involvement in an accident? DSA? stress/long hours? etc c) What is available regarding asbestos in the office? d) Does an office fire risk assessment exist? e) What training records exist for the competence of the drivers, are they all correctly licensed. f) What maintenance records exist for the fleet? g) Does the company display their current insurance certification, is there a HSE H&S notice in the office. h) What is the company induction process? i) Do they have an incident recording system? j) And of course who provides their H&S assistance? The above is not the complete list of what I would look for but will give you a start. What you find does not need to be complicated but should be appropriate to a taxi company e.g. If the H&S Policy says when working over water personnel should wear life jackets then I would guess that it is a cut & paste job and not suitable. Lack of the existance of above documents/systems should start big warning bells ringing. Hope this helps, don't mean to be negative but when things go wrong, good intentions stand for nothing and the legal profession make their living out of the law as it stands, not as it should be, your interpretation of the law or how some Lord thinks it ought to be. Take Care

Fletcher, a well constructed and thought provoking response. Although, as I’ve said before, I think it’s great that MCbrpete will be getting some live experience however; the fact remains that MCbrpete is asking such basic questions leads me to believe that in this instance advice/assistance should be sought from someone who is more experienced to aid the process. Any experienced practitioner will note that enforcement officers do not usually inform you that they are calling unless they are giving you the opportunity to rectify existing issues or following a complaint etc. Has this company received any correspondence from any enforcement body? Food for thought relating to this low risk environment that some have suggested; Have the office got any ACM’s? Is a register in place, do we class this as low risk? Is maintenance work taking place to vehicles, quite common for taxi companies? This opens a whole area of issues which you would not necessarily call low risk? This may of course be a general visit with little to worry about. But would you know how to approach the situation if enforcement action is taken; legal protocols, legal privilege and the implications to protect yourself? By being part of the process and introduced as the person who is assessing the risks you could find yourself having to take your own time out to deal with any legal actions taken against you friends business. If things go wrong, this may even extend to obtaining legal advice yourself! In this instance I would be cautious before venturing to help out. I suggest that you get some impartial advice from IOSH and/or talk to you lecturer/tutor.

Good post! I think that it says it all - an articulated sum up of what we are all trying to say!

If it helps focus the discussion any, I know that some LA's in my area have been looking at workplace violence issues and late night businesses. It strikes me that Private Hire cabs and offices are likely to be covered by this remit.

Very true decimomal!

Sounds like that can of worms will not be opened by either HSE or LA! Good luck.