Posted By Jane Riley
There seem to be a number of organisations who send out DSE questionnaires, and then either follow up any hazards identified by the 'user' or take at face value that there are no hazards, if that is what the 'user' has identified.
I am concerned that this is not sufficient to comply with the DSE Regs, as it must surely require someone with sufficient skills, knowledge & experience to examine the working environment before a suitable & sufficient assessment can be made. Even if someone is not designated a user under the DSE Regs, I feel that it would be necessary for a competent person to look at the working environment to ensure that the employer was doing everything reasonably practicable to ensure their health, safety & welfare. Whether the person was a designated user or not, they would need information on how to recognise any signs or symptoms which may indicate the start of adverse health effects.

Does anyone have any knowledge of improvement notices or prosecutions of companies who use non-competent personnel to carry out DSE assessments?

Posted By John Ridd
Jane, there have been some improvement notices issued that identify DSE assessments that are not 'suitable and sufficient' but whether these are specifically because they were self assessments, I'm not sure.

The Guidance attaching to the DSE Regs. is clear - that self assessments should only be carried out FOLLOWING information and TRAINING to those persons. My experience is similar to yours in that many employers do not realise this and indeed many don't train at all.

However, once 'users' have been trained then it is reasonable to take their assessments as informed responses on which the co-ordinator or competent assessor can then make judgements concerning who to visit and on what priority, in order to conduct a full assessment. It is true that all 'users' should be visited at some stage even if they have filed a self assessment form showing no problems, but reasonable practicability might mean that employers can only get round to those with problems. For this reason it is vital for DSE training to have been carried out, and for the information provided to have included details on the need to report, and on to whom to report problems should they arise subsequent to completing the assessment form.

Non designated 'users' should be assessed under the Management Regs.

My recommendation to employers is to class everyone who has a VDU on their desk as a 'user'; if they don't they risk alienating some workers who then see that they get treated differently; they (the employers) should also go back regularly and check that 'non-users' haven't in the mean time become 'users' - this all creates bureaucratic nightmares and to my mind is better avoided.