I’m looking to compare what we do as a largish social landlord undertaking repairs and maintenance to around 17,000 dwellings with regard to providing asbestos information to trades’. For many years we provided the repairs teams with run-sheets which list the jobs allocated for the day; that sheet also contained all the asbestos information for the properties on that list which is sourced from the corporate asbestos database. A trial has been undertaken which simply meant work was allocated on a job at a time basis and the trades were compelled to phone back for asbestos information once they’d arrived and determined the scope of works, i.e. a call telling them to go to X and a second call to establish data. The service manager is looking to reduce the level of phone calls and has a couple of options at this point: 1. We can introduce a system where simple tasks wouldn't’t require the second call, i.e. a faulty front door lock wouldn't’t necessitate a call back but a replacement sink unit might because it is more likely to disturb textured coatings, floor tiles, etc. 2. We could put the onus back onto trades’ to identify where they need the information. I’m just looking for what others do where they have the information available and relay that to front line staff where appropriate. Many Thanks

Reg 10 Awareness Training should enable the trades to determine when information is needed, and (more specifically) when it is not? You should have sufficient confidence in your training regime and information systems to allow some degree of autonomy here. The corollary to this of course is that, no matter how robust the process of information exchange, the situation will arise where the tradesperson is confronted with something 'suspect' which your database has not yet discovered, and he must know how to react to that - not trust blindly in an information system?