Hi all,

Advice sought please. A collegue of mine has been put in a bit of sticky situation, it has come to light that the individual has had there signature forged on a couple of sets of RAMS documentation for site work while away  on holiday. The company has no specific HR on site and the company utilises an external legal support team for issues. So the problem being where do they stand legally and what would the consequences be, and who should they speak to as the external support company will obviously be more on side with the company who are paying them? 

All help and advice greatly appreciated.

You have a PM

This looks less like a legal issue and more an internal disciplinary matter.  There must be an investigation as it looks like someone has broken the organisation’s internal policies but you need to make sure that it is not custom and practice ( bad practice admittedly) for people to sign off documents in other people’s names.

To be provocative, since when did signatures become necessary on risk assessments or method statements, or indeed anything H&S outside the scope of certain specialist licencing rules? 

I have found reluctance to get involved in assessing and recording risk findings are often down to a local 'requirement' to 'sign' the document (usually a form). Eliminate that, and the blockage is cleared. It is the employers legal duty to ensure suitable and sufficient, sfairp etc.

Signatures are internal organisational requirements (I don't know why), not legal ones. It's an artificially created 'offence'. 

It is certainly useful to know who was involved in any particular decision process, but names are more readable & useful than a signature, although I like senior managers to acknowledge the safety decisions of others in some way; that is still just internal accountability.