Posted By Clarke Kent
Tom,

You will find it difficult to find any prescriptive legislation regarding this as the HSE/HSC have moved away from prescriptive legislation to a risk assessment based approach and it is now therefore the responsibility of employers to conduct risk assessments to decide what suitable control measures are required to reduce the level of risk to as low as is reasonably practicable.

There are certain activities that I would hope most employers would only conduct or allow to be conducted i.e by contractors, under a permit to work system; working at heights, entry into confined spaces, hot work, electrical/mechanical isolation of plant/equipment, excavation and any other activity that when assessed is deemed to require a permit to work issuing as an additional control measure before starting that activity.

Permit to work systems are considered an essential part of any health and safety risk management process. Remember Tom that compliance with the law is the minimum requirement and we should always aim higher and seek continuous improvement.