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Woodpecker  
#1 Posted : 28 November 2018 16:44:19(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Woodpecker

Hi,

I'd be interested in your thoughts when employees working permanently on a customer site are working to the customer risk assessments?  

Where do both organisations stand legally if something goes wrong?

Would you have an agreement in place that you agree they are suitable and sufficient?

Thanks

Ian Bell2  
#2 Posted : 28 November 2018 18:40:22(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Ian Bell2

Both employers have a duty to cooperate and coordinate over health and safety matter. You need to be satisifed that the risk assessment by your customers are suitable and sufficient for the work activities being carried out by your employee.

If it goes wrong - the employee will probably try and get compensation out of both of you.

Woodpecker  
#3 Posted : 28 November 2018 18:50:18(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Woodpecker

Thanks for the reply the reason I ask is am trying to remove duplication  e.g.where employees have  undertaken 2 risk assessments e.g. DSE Assessments

I am trying to keep it as simple as I can for employees amd not generate work, but ensure we have identifed the hazards and implemented the controls as well as being compliant.

I support employees across several customer sites and they all have various differences, agreements etc.. I am trying to implement standard practices.

achrn  
#4 Posted : 29 November 2018 08:17:56(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
achrn

Where we have staff seconded to others (but we remain their employer, we pay their salary, etc etc) we mostly let them follow the systems / processes of wherever they are.  That is, they would do the DSE assessment process of whoever we've seconded them to, and not ours.  However, we review that organsisations arrangements to ensure that we believe their system is adequate.  In general it's likely that the host organisation's methods are more closely aligned to the detail of what they are doing than ours - theirs are tailored to their practices, after all (though the specific case of DSE is much of a muchness generally).

As an aside, but similar issue, we normally have the host organisation provide the PPE to our employee - again, their equipment is (hopefully) tailored to what they are doing and more specific than ours.

These arrangements are set out in the contract between the organisations.

There are occasional situations  where we consider that the host's arrangements don't provide as good as ours, and then the individual generally ends up doing both (or we provide the PPE and they wear ours).  This happens most often with secondments outside the UK - in the UK we mostly find that our clients are as good as us (they are generally 18001 etc), in the middle east we have some clients that are, but plenty that are not.

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