I attended my CCNSG safety passport renewal yesterday and the tutor is on the assessment and prosecution board for the HSE and also a previous inspector advised that the UK government had agreed to adopt the new EU directive for safety signs due to come in during 2012, changing signs such as yellow hazard signs to a universal white background.

Does anyone know any more about this?

Thanks

Incidentally, although there is some transitional work required on our UK Regs, the implementation date for globally harmonised signs on packaging is 2015.
Interesting choice of words in your post there, safetyinspector "the UK government has agreed to adopt...."
As if they have a choice!

It is surprising that somehow all legislation changes are "blamed" on the EU, even when the GHS changes that resulted in the CLP regulation for Europe are meant to improve the communication of chemical hazards in the use of chemical globally, so that there are not very different systems of classification and labelling of chemicals throughout the world. We have/had different systems in USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, EU, etc etc--all have agreed to adopt GHS.

Even the Lofstedt Report states that :-
"........Although the EU has driven UK health and safety regulation over the last thirty years, perhaps less important than the extent of regulation originating from the EU is the way in which it is formulated. After all, Michael Connarty, the former Chairman of the EU Scrutiny Committee in the House of Commons is reported as saying that “probably 90 per cent” of all EU laws currently in force in the UK would have existed even in the absence of the EU"

Off topic, but I'm interested in the tutor being on the "assessment and prosecution board" for the HSE. Despite 13+ years with HSE, that's one board I've never heard of!

Nope, I don't get that either.

Given the misinformation stated in the first posting, probably the latter!