I am interested on how fellow h&s professionals keep their knowledge of h&s related legislation up to date. I have used the http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ website to review various bits of legislation but secondary legislation is not amended on this system, so as I see it, you have to be aware that other legislation has been enacted that affects the original. For example the Manual Handling Operations Regulations (MHOR) were amended by the Health and Safety (Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations in 2002 but only the original version of MHOR is available. Do any of you have tips you would be willing to share on how you keep your knowledge of legislation up to date?

I see the legal updates supplied by most law firms as a bit of waste of money. They involve taking an hour or more out of your day depending on how far you have to travel and usually the consist of : 1) Telling what the law is, which if it is relevant to you should know anyway 2) Telling what changes if any are going to happen- this usually takes 10 minutes 3) 3) and finally what they really want, telling how wonderful their firm is and how much you need their services. The HSE only issue new regulations once a year- in April and there is usually a lot of publicity surrounding anything that is new and significant not least on this forum. There is a myth that HSE are turning out new legislation continually and that you need to keep on top of this. It’s simply not true most of the new legislation has been quite subtle technical changes which do not substantially change the meaning and purpose of the legislation.

The South Downs Branch have Anne Davies from Crowell Moring come in once a year to deliver a legal update. It is always our busiest event and invariably well recieved. It is more than just a legal update, Anne provides insight into how the cases go through the legal system; background information that you are not going to get elsewhere.

Does this help? http://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/forthcoming.htm

While I agree with redken that the HSE site is good for legislation, it is often case law that makes the biggest impact and this is where websites/news releases from legal firms can be of benefit. I think it would be worth regularly looking at the websites of three or four of the big firms. Regards. DJ