Hi  all, I would appreciate some advice on this as it's not something I have a tremendous exposure too.  It's regarding an engineering company that carries out maintenance works at different locations, potentially 5-10 visits a year on flat roofs with no edge protection etc, in fact everything they should have they don't. The buildings are mainly owned by schools, who say they are not required to assist any contractors on site. After carrying out a site visit and watching the engineers working. I asked them to come down whilst we carry out further assessments, and of course have contacted the company regarding this an raised concerns over unsafe practices. (NFU) are their dedicated advisors.  I was looking for a fall arrest system that could be used and taken between sites, obviously with the correct training? or maybe install Edge protection scaffold depending one costs. Does anyone have any views on this, and what should the building owner be doing? could they share the cost for installing edge protecting? Andy

Your thoughts of a transferable system of edge protection would be a none starter as no two roofs are the same. A distance restraint (anchor to a central point) would be more adaptable.

However your client is in an incredibly poor position permitting the schools to claim they have no responsibility for contractors - after all they are premises owner. Trouble is when they seek quotes no one wants to pay for a fully scaffolded solution.

Depending on the school it likely the flat roof areas interspersed with polycarbonate roof lights - whilst these may have been installed with a degree of load protection over time UV and weathering will have degraded this performance making them a potential fall point also requiring protection.

If these are contracted visits then maybe the contract should include installation of a safety line system between access point and work location.

All sorts of issues and implications here, starting from access to the roof and whether it's an integral ladder, external or internal staircase or an extending ladder carried by the workforce. As stated in the previous comment deterioration of the roof structure, suitable anchor points for work positioning or running line, dedicated walkways and protection of skylights or rooflights and more importantly rescue plans and method of recovering an unresponsive or suspended person also play a part.

Since you've specified schools the responsibility for safe access must lie with the Local Education Authority as building owner, unless they are private schools or Academies of course and the requirement to provide or organise that safe access should lie with them. 

There are a number of counterweighted edge protection systems that are available but they are really only useful for longer term work because of the work involved in getting them on a roof assembling them and then dismantling them at the end. Using these, weight loadings might then become a problem as well.

Hi Andy

I have investigated 10 fatal accidents where people have fallen whilst working on roofs or when accessing to or from them. 

None with the same set of causes, with the only common feature being falling.

So, you need to consider each job on its own merits to have a chance of assessing what would be reasonably practicable and what NOT reasonably practicable.

Any suggestion that this is not a problem for the people contracting out work is a non-starter! Well before anyone started drafting CONDAM a short lived acronym that didn't even survive the Consultation before the first iteration of what is now known as CDM came into force,  I investigated an accident where a scaffolder fell through a rooflight on a flat roof and wrote the prosecution report that resulted in Client, Main Contractor and the scaffolding subbie ending up in Court.

Your starting point is the HSE guidance, HSG33, now in its 5th edition.

So, you need to know what the engineers are doing on the roof, how they get there (e.g. permanent access from within the building) and how close they might be to any place from which they can fall whilst doing the work or getting to or from that place or places + anything that might make it likely that they will end up closer to the point from which they can fall.

A flat roof should NOT be flat - if designed as such it is a recipe for water pooling and leaking through the roof. So "flat roofs" are designed with a "pitch" and the term flat roof means one with a pitch of maximum 10 degrees. The closer you are to that 10 degrees, the more chance of slipping towards an edge, and of course the nature of the roofing material also influences the likelihood of that slip.

In terms of where they could fall from, obviously the open edges, but also any material that might be fragile, such as the roof lights that have already been mentioned.

Putting in permanent edge protection might NOT be reasonably practicable as it might just be another reason to access the roof, just to check that it is still in sound condition, but also as one of the considerations that might need to be taken into account is its impact on the aesthetics of the building - in ye olden days ornate edge protection was common on the roofs of buildings, but numerous accidents have occurred when old railings have failed.

You have a similar issue if considering permanent running lines ("Latchway" or similar) - another bit of kit which needs access for inspection and maintenance if you don't want the lines to provide a false sense of security - and such systems need to be carefully designed so that someone is attached to some anchorage at ALL times when they are at risk.

Not going to tell you where, but I once climbed a very high ladder with a running line on the LEFT hand side. Got to the top and needed to pass through a hatch on the RIGHT hand side of the ladder. Between the ladder and the hatch was a gap of over 300mm and nothing to stop me falling tens of metres! So, somebody hadn't thought the whole access arrangments through.

Hence the overall message is that somebody needs to sit down and work out the various reasons why people need to go on the roof and come up with a mix of possibly some permanent protections and some done for each specific job. If this is a modern school this should all have been done as part of the design process!

.....but may be these engineers are accessing plant which is well away from any potential points of fall and could go up in dry conditions with little wind and be safe, so far as reasonably practicable, with no special additional measures. 

....or may be temporary protection is needed but that brings its own risks - in terms of setting up in a rational sequence and then removing, ditto.