Hi there,

We have a number of mobile maintenance teams (typically 2 men or more) working up and down the UK.

On occasion our employees have to perform hot work. Many of the locations our employees work at are not directly manned or managed by our customers. In fact many of these sites wouldn't have an established permitting system in place, especially for hot working which as above on occasion our employees must do.

We have the relevant RAMS in place and our lads are competent as regards their trades, fire awareness and specifically hot working. We also issue a 'hot work permit' when the situation arises defining requirements depending on the nature of the task. This form is signed in advance by a manager or supervisor which I'm not really comfortable with. It just seems a but daft they are signing off on work in an area they cannot observe so it all seems a pointless and frivolous exercise.

From my understanding in a past life one arrives at a premises and wishes to perform hot work you request a permit from a person in authority who will then issue you the permit and inspect the work area, equipment etc... This is not possible for our mobile work teams.

I'm interested in hearing ideas from those who may have dealt with this situation already - approval or monitoring hot works for mobile or remote workers.

Thank you

we undertook a self permitting system that used on a daily basis by the trained employees & was managed by the teams managers which worked well and as our barristers & insurers explained would be useful tool if ever we went to court as it would indicate that we did what we could in the circumstances - this system has been working for >20 years and the HSE have been happy with it

You're right to be concerned. The 'remote' permission regime you describe is unworkable. PTW must be under the direct control of a responsible person and should be time-bound.
If your tradespersons are lone-working then the whole notion of PTW is just plain daft.
You Clients should be well aware of your manning levels and arrangements in that regard.

Note best industry practice of a return visit to unoccupied properties after the initial fire watch period.

I acknowledge the use of "self-permit" systems out there, but I do believe that by strict definition that it is erroneous to refer to these as permit-to-work systems.

Hi All,

First off thank you for the many replies and opinions.

We normally have a lead or authorised person on every job, minimum 2 persons in a team. All our lead men are knowledgeable as regards risk assessment review and amendment too.

I'm proposing at the RAMS generation stage, any hot working identified will have an accompanying check list identifying the relevant controls and signed verification for the lead person to use and complete as the job progresses. It's almost a re-assignment of the permit to a 'checklist with verification'. As some have stated and my own take on things too, the current system does not fit permitting by definition.

I'll also inform our customers or clients as regards our hot work activities and how we propose to control them outside of a normally established hot work permit model. The option being, if they do not have an established hot work permit system for their organisation or remote premises then this is how we propose to control the risk. Ultimately if we do have a client who disagrees with our approach then they may have to support with their own rules and process.

I've noted Ron Hunter's reference to best industry practise and return visits to unoccupied properties after a certain period which I intend to explore further also.

I'm very interested in Bob Youel's self permitting process and how that worked. Would you be able to give some additional information on that or just a brief outline?

Once again thank you for the responses on this. Always very good to get different perspectives on these situations.

pmace - self completing the hot work permit on site would be acceptable in the situation you describe. You should use the permit precautions list as a checklist to ensure you have met the requirements on site, e.g. FEA present, fire watch, clearance of combustibles.

Your public liability insurers will have imposed a "condition precedent to policy liability" in relation to hot work. This means you have to complete the precautions proscribed in order for the policy cover to be active (these are normally identical to those on a HWP). Failure to do so would mean you are faced with the repair bill from the client.

So - use of HWP is a good way of evidencing to your insurers that you've complied with their policy condition and considered the risks on site.

Pre-signing in the office beforehand is worthless by the way.

permits to work were [& are] traditionally practiced in certain areas in certain industries but there is no real reason what-so-ever that PTW's cannot be used in far and wide situations [thinking outside the box] as a good form of control on top of every day controls and where a situation exists where no competent person is present on site e.g. a work location could be completely empty apart from your worker & management may never have even seen it; they are a good tool to use

One thing to remember is that staff must be trusted, adequately managed [a % number of unannounced drop ins for each team by their manager to ensure all is OK] and trained ----- with the PTW documentation being 1 page or more if needed [and retained by management] along with adequate information being given by management before hand and people sign into and out of the PTW as they would do on a petrol refinery albeit without all the colour coding, key locks etc. [over the years I have found that 1 page is adequate for all types work]

a recent incident where the worker had signed the PTW for 'work at height' & had fallen and was taken to hospital and upon viewing the PTW the HSE were more than happy with the employers controls as the worker had failed to adhere to the instructions given even though he had opened [signed the document] the PTW NB: the work was carried out before any other staff arrived to start work as is the norm so no management is on site whilst such work is undertaken hence the self PTW

regards

steve; i could not agree more in that things should be as simple as poss

all the usual documents [ssow, risk assessments, training, managers quality checks etc.] are in place. The single page [multi jobs on one page sometimes] PTW is additional and the reason its additional is so as to pass across the importance of the PTW as a stand alone system of work to the employee as against having it in the RA [or elsewhere] for the job

another example is where a job exploded and our man [ a new employee] was in the middle of it [he survived but he has not been the same since] and again the HSE were more than happy noting again that the man had worked 'outside' of the system NB: if you remember the rig situation where the PTWs were all used, colour coded and locked off with a permit officer etc. in charge yet the rig still went up in flames so things can happen even where the site is fully occupied!!!