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christine.miller  
#1 Posted : 24 November 2017 12:09:11(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
christine.miller

Interested in other peoples view here: If a company has only 2 employees undertaking work, both of whom are Directors, but their business activities are both high risk and undertaken on sites owned by other companies, what would you expect their health and safety management system to look like? They take heavy plant encorporating lifting gear and industrial shredder to sites across the company. They have less than 5 staff so literally and legally they do not need a WRITTEN health and safety policy, but due to the nature of the work I am inclined to advise them that they should do so as best practice and pro-active management. Does this make sense to anyone else? They do have comprehensive risk assessments, safe work procedure, site contract, disclaimer and site agreements covering the work that they do onsite (I did this with them) but is there anything else that they should consider doing, if not legally, then as a precaution?
Sgallacher27  
#2 Posted : 24 November 2017 12:56:40(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Sgallacher27

Hi Christine,

As you say, they don't legally have to have a written health and safety policy. However, if they are contractors working on other sites which they do not own, how else can they demonstrate to clients that they take health and safety seriously? Obviously it doesn't have to be war and peace, but surely it is in their best interests to demonstrate in writing that they have adequate arrangements and procedures in place.

When I am arranging contractors etc, one of the first documents I request is their health and safety policy. Also, I would be asking for any maintenance/servicing documents for all equipment/machinery involved in their tasks and details of any accidents or enforcing authority notices for the last, say, 3 years. The other usual stuff like PLI and personal training certificates would also normally be requested so it would be good practice for the company to have all of these documents readily available.This would all be on top of robust RAMS.

However, I do realise that for a small company this can seem like a lot of paperwork and possibly 'overkill'. I would suggest to the directors that they will reap the rewards when they can easily demonstrate to potential clients that they have all arrangements in place and they take health, safety and welfare seriously.

You could possibly also look into SSiP membership, or at least enquire about this as you will then discover what types of documents are required and this could be used as a guide, even if you don't go for membership.

I hope this has been of some help.

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