A friend of mine works in a call centre where there is a mixture of direct employees of the building owner and employees provided by an outsourced provider. Recently air monitoring was carried out by the building owner on ventilation systems in the area of the outsourced workers, and they were told this was for potential contaminants. The outsourced workers have requested to their employee (the outsourcing provider) to see the results of the monitoring done by the building owners but they have been told by their management (outsourced provider) that they do not have any rights to see the results as they are not employees of the owner of the building who were doing the monitoring. I was wondering if under reg 3 of COSHH as visiting employees the employer had an obligation to share the results of the monitoring. Basically, they want to see the results of the monitoring and I wondered what regulations could they utilise to get access to the results? Thanks for your help

Its good advice and I believe they have tried that but there is no real direct contact between the contracted out areas and the directly employed employees, and so have not met with any success on that front. They have also tried speaking directly to their employers but they have been told they have no rights to the monitoring results. I am really just looking for the relevant parts of the regs to answer their specific questions on whether they have a right to see the results. Thanks for the answer though.

The employer of the outsourcing company has a duty to their employees under Section 2 Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 wherever they might be based (as long it is within the UK). So they have a DUTY to make sure that their employees are safe. The buildings owners (under Section 3 Health and Safety at Work Act 1974) has a duty to inform anybody who might be at risk from their undertaking. So if they carried out some sort of monitoring and have identified any sort of risk then should share that information with everybody using that building including the contracted out employees. You do not carry out monitoring for fun, so their must be some sort of risk that has been identified. Finally, Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, “11 (c) take all reasonable steps to inform the other employers concerned of the risks to their employees' health and safety arising out of or in connection with the conduct by him of his undertaking.”

Thanks for the assistance everyone. More or less what I thought, but always good to ask the wider community. Help much appreciated. Cheers