My company are a Consultancy, i am now overseeing all COSHH Assessments, but one thing is bothering me. We are based on the middle floor of an Office building, so people who clean the building are employed through the Landlord.
My question is, do i still do COSHH Assessments for the chemicals the cleaners use, bearing in mind they clean after we have left and chemicals are stored on bottom floor?

meant completing COSHH Risk Assessments, and overseeing them i just mean completing them myself, my wording could be better...yeah it was something i was thinking about, i doubt the landlord has COSHH Assessments, so was unsure should i ask for the Safety Data Sheets and do them anyway to be sure

I guess I'd like to know if your workers have access to them, or if they are likely to spill or otherwise escape from their containers during the day. If they're in a place where your people can't get hold of them inadvertently and stored so they won't accidentall spill I really wouldn't worry about them. If they aren't so stored, then you might need to consider the chances of an accidental release and what you would do about it,

John

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Please foregive me if I am wrong in my thoughts but your questions lead me to advise you to take professional advice re the subject as such questions are very basic ones and if U are undertaking risk assessments U need to ensure that U are competent to do so as such assessments can come back and bite U

My concern would be what chemicals etc. they use in MY office.

Although my staff wouldn't be using or accessing the stuff normally, my concern comes from health risks to MY staff.
People have allergies, skin conditions, breathing conditions and I would like to see the CoSHH ASSESSMENTS and not the Data sheet to satisfy myself that the landlord is taking proper measures to protect MY staff.

Does any of that make sense??

duty of care is to your employees, but i agree that a due dilligance check to see that the landlord is doing his part is a requirement. I am in the same position, I annualy check his records not only on coshh but maintinance and all other issues that would affect my company if it was not all in order.

See above

CoSHH is namely about 'use' of the chemical - agreed storgae should be considered but that is outside of your control by the sounds of things.

If I was to do a CoSHH assessment - my first action would be to look at alternative cleaning products. I'd then go back to the cleaner and demand that they change all their chemicals for some nice expensive organic vegetable based ones. I'd also request they bought some hitech cleaning devices that limited the need to use cleaning products. Oh and i'd insist all their staff had EVERY occ health test going - again at great unnecessary expense to them :)

It's not your duty to manage this risk... now it IS your duty to co-operate with the contractor and ensure that your staff are adequately protected. But as stated above i would go back to landlord ref; this.

I assume you don't have the power to change the cleaning contractor or the way the work? if not what's the point of the risk assessment??? I suppose you could decide that when they are cleaning you will all leave the office, or that your staff need some training - but really this should be decided in the cleaning company's assessments....