Posted By Nick Higginson Kelvin It is the employers duty to appoint "competent" advisors. If he fails to act on their recommendations, then no blame can be attached to the advisor (whether they are a consultant, or internal advisor). Consultants are not expected to work for free. Regards Nick

Posted By Nick Higginson Dave I am a little confused as to your messages relevance to the original posting? Perhaps I misread it...... Please elaborate? I thought the original posting said the organisation didn't want to spend money on any further action, and asked where the consultant would stand if something went wrong? Regards Nick

Posted By John Murphy The Management Regulations need a company to appoint "one or more competent people" to help them to comply with their duties under health and safety law so they can prevent accidents and ill health ant work. In practise, they could appoint; The MD or Company director (if they are sure they know enough about what they have to do); One or more of their employees, ensuring they give them, enough time and other resources to do the job properly;· Someone from outside their firm to help them, if neither they nor their employees have enough competence. (Management Reg’s (Regulation 7(1)). See ACoP 51 for definition of "competence". Simply telling a company they have to have a safety consultant as their competent advice (and by the way - its going to be me) strikes me as a bit bullish. Give them the advice in writing and let them make the informed decision based on the facts and of course choice.

Posted By Ron Hunter Are you identifying your consultancy as the 'competent person' in the Policy document you are preparing? I suggest you leave that section blank, or else ask your client to provide the details?

Posted By Merv Newman Three times in the last fifteen years as a consultant I have found that the "competent person" wasn't. On each occasion I put my opinion in writing and each company took steps to correct the situation. In other situations I have found that, while the H&S people were quite competent, there were not enough of them to provide necessary coverage (3 500 employee site with three first line level safety technicians, one of them named as "supervisor"). In these cases I have recommended, in writing, that managment obtain or develop further competent persons. Done. I don't believe that a consultant could put themselves up as the "competent person". This would require constant and continuing on-site presence so as to deal with all of the day to day problems that come up. Being available by portable phone or e-mail is just not good enough. You need to be there to talk to the contractor/employee/manager as the problems arise. However, back to the original posting ; if I tell a client that they need the services of a "competent person" and they refuse, then that is their problem, legally and morally. Merv I'm still waiting for my glass of wine !