Posted By Smiff I am addressing this new clause of the standard, and wondered if anyone on here has experience of conducting such an evaluation, and in particular any feedback from their certifying body? I want a benchmark for how in depth this exercise needs to be, as I can see potential for going over the top. Any shared experience would be much appreciated.

Posted By Carrie Ellerby Smiff, do you have a register of legislation applicable to your workplace? If so, then just go through this making a list of all the controls you have in place for complying, i.e. oil bunds and resulting checks against oil storage regs, and use this as a checklist for monitoring compliance, i.e. making sure the oil bund checks get done. PS: this is not entirely a new requirement of the 2004 standard; it was always covered in Monitoring and Measurement. Carrie

Posted By Smiff Carrie, I agree this is not new, just a clarification what has always been required. I guess this is why I'm struggling to grasp what our auditor wants to see when he's been approving our system as compliant for two years?

Posted By Smiff Thank you David, or Dingbat, Paul?

Posted By Robert K Lewis There is a degree of variation in the interpretation of this among 3rd party assessors at this time with some placing a pretty strict interpretation. The key point is to be able to demonstrate that the legal and other requirements identified in your system are managed and that you remain compliant at all times, or effectively at all times, and be able to demonstrate the evidence that it has done so. The scope of the evidence/records is provided in the 2004 guidance to the revised standard and is wide ranging in its posibilities. An example might be: a) Site discharge consents may provide for maximum flow and specific analysis - The evidence of compliance would be management and other procedures/equipment to monitor flow and obtain laboratory analysis and the records of these. If plant maintenance was critical to the compliance, eg regular callibration, then these records also would need to be maintained. Audits only provide a snapshot and tell you if and when the system failed in retrospect, not prevent the failure so far as practicable. It is about proactive management of your risks and not simply recording what has happened and what will be done to correct the problems. In essence you need to identify your aspects, how you control them and ensure that records are able to demonstrate compliance. If I could put a H&S example - WAH regs place requirements to inspect scaffolds at the point of erection completion and thereafter basically every 7 days or when there may have been change etc. By following this legal duty precisely does it demonstrate compliance at all times? - The answer for me is a NO, something else is required which may be simple supervisor diary records to show ongoing inspection is taking place. This is after all that which convinces the HSE that you are managing the scaffold! Bob

Posted By Fred Pratley Smiff, As Robert posted, if you have set license conditions to meet, record what must be done (as stated in your legislation register) check how well you are doing, write it up and make a formal conclusion of the facts. We are doing this as part of the 6 month legislation review. The "other" requirements bit is proving tricky. I would not regard packaging prescribed by customer as being something to which the company subscribes. My understanding is that it is a self imposed requirement, something you do voluntarily, such as committing to an industry standard or as part of a trading group or business association standard. Our BSI suggested this is more under the Corporate Social Responsibility banner than anything else. Regards Fred

Posted By Gary L I hope you aren't including me in the "arguing aggressively" category Robert! ;) Just to clarify, our audits don't just look at Legal compliance. We audit against our various policies, of which compliance is identified as the minimum standard we should work to. In my opinion there are also other, perhaps more important issues, which you should be looking at during audit, for example the attitude of a crew leader to his team, their perception of risk, and their confidence/competence when performing a task to name but a few. Anyway, getting back to the new clause.. I don't like quoting from regulations etc, but 4.5.2.1 requires an organisation to "establish, implement & maintain a procedure for periodically evaluating compliance with applicable legal requirements." The standard also mentions other requirements, which we interpret as anything from a client, our landlord or leasing company, and other audit systems such as UVDB Verify & the Rail Core Module. BSI looked at our audit system during our 14001 transition audit from the 1996 to the 2004 standard and were satisfied that the audits we've completed meet the requirements under the new clause(s). The commitment from management was never in question. Yours (in a non-argumentative manner) Gary