Posted By Jim Walker
Amazing what goes on, on nightshifts!

Suggest H&S take a very much backseat role if you can.
Unless you have a ineffectual HR dept, they should have enough to sort this out.

Says something about your company safety culture, I fear.

Posted By Steven
Did the incident involve and accident/injury?

Steve

Posted By Fornhelper
I used to work on construction sites when I lived in Oz and these were regular events at the end of the week or a contract. So long as the guys were in a safe area, no construction traffic moving around and not returning to work afterwards then no problems. In fact they were b***dy brilliant mate ...(and no sheila's to annoy you either !!!) :)

FH

Posted By Glyn Atkinson
From a non regulatory viewpoint, does the compound welfare facilities include power and water mains? Are naked flames an allowable feature on the site, with suitable controls in place for fire control? Are the staff your own people or contract workers, and in either case, have they read and understood laid down site rules? Would the security staff ordinarily be able to prepare hot food on site with current facilities?

Coming from the far side now,

Should there have been a Hot Work permit in force for the BBQ?

Did anyone check to see if a planned and risk assessed event was actually taking place?

Are you miffed that you didn't get an invite? - Sorry, I know that you are serious, but we are supposed to be human!!

Back to more serious - the beer or alcohol element would be more serious to my mind, as that could alter the sensibility of guards when at work , if proven to be found at the location.

Posted By RJT
Dee

Your thread did make it sound like it was you who had instigated the response to the incident. It also made it sound like it was considered to be a major incident which required immediate action.

When I read it I got one of those "for goodness sake, does it really matter?" moments.

The point I was trying to make - very crudely I admit - was that BBQs are generally very safe. The Shift Manager, who presumably has some authority over the site, decides to have a BBQ.

If it was done in a safe manner, and there aren't any specific site rules preventing it - then does it really matter?

Posted By Charley Farley-Trelawney
As a company we have been providing a BBQ on our site twice a week. This is the second week now and it is very popular with the staff, clients, and General Public.

I have attended now on both days for both weeks, and :"we H&S Managers/Officers/Directors must get involved with situations like this. I have, and I can thoroughly recommend the Pimms, and the quality of the food. And further I consider it a great team building exercise, I would add though that I am not promoting the consumption of alcohol if carrying out works that clearly one must have a clear mind for and almost certainly adhere to a works alcohol policy.

My MD was keen to buy the jug of Pimms and we were keen to drink it, food has been brilliant, weather great, what more could you want?

Oh, and yes, gas storage ticked, manual handling ticked, coshh ticked, fire regs ticked (and FRA updated) and all other regs/acts ticked, insurers notified, phew I think that was all I had to do, ahhh, DSE assessments, and ergonomic relationships! nearly forgot, its the eyes after the Pimms you see, no pun intended.

Just thought I would mention how we do it in the South West, and we are a large group of companies, we do not have any work area that a bad example has been set by the consumption of a small glass or two of Pimms, I would not advocate this, there are many very nice soft drinks about and you should not set a bad example by consuming alchohol if your policy is one of ZERO TOLERANCE. Remember folks everything in moderation (ish)

CFT

Posted By Ali
May sound facetious (spelling ?) , but you could ask them if they had done a Risk assessment on this activity as all "hazardous" activities need to be risk assessed. This will put the ball back in their court !
Ali