Posted By p winter Good morning - we employ a number of sub contractors mostly very small organisations typically 3-4 people to carry out site installation work for us - a much larger company. Many of these chaps were originally our employees, when things were reorganised they were made redundant, set themselves up as self employed and came back on that basis to do the same work. We have provided H&S training (manual handling and other) and and provide some PPE. These boys are effectively treated as employees (for H&S)- maybe not for tax reasons. Risk assessments now indicate Health Surveillance is required for Vibration and Noise - I feel we should arrange, and pay, others in the company (with financial responsibility) do not. Your views please Pete

Posted By Raymond Rapp Pete Tend to agree with Ian's response. As a company you may be vicariously liable for accidents and incidents, but these people are now self-employed and as such are responsible for their own well-being. Your responsibility as the Client should only be to ensure a SSoW. Probably best to discuss the matter with your sub-contractors to ensure they fully understand the situation. Ray

Posted By mark gough2 In my opinion it could be argued that you have sec(3)HSAW Act 1974 duties to sub contractors likely to be affected by your undertaking. I have seen succesful prosecutions of principle contractors for failure to provide a SSW. Including manual handling and Vibration issues when sub contractors have laid pavements etc. Where a sub contractor works pretty much for one company then sec (2) and (3) can be used especially as many sub contractors wear logos, sign in as and have risk assesments done in the "parent company style" (many principle contractors dont like subies of subies so this is a little way around it). Again in my opinion if it looks like a duck and quacks it is a duck. Most case law bears this out tho the HTM ruling on forseeability may alter this slightly. You also need to ensure that you have given enough resources and guidance so that the sub contractor can work safely. You can delegate duties but not responsibilities. case law and experience as shown that from an enforcement point of view the person in charge of the works (the contract holder) is always considered first then the sub contractor then the individual. To answer the question you do not have to provide health surveillance but you do need to ensure that where necessary that someone is doing it. This could be done as part of your contractor assessment process (beware data protection issues here!!.) However health surveillance in most cases is at the bottom of any controls. You must be able to show that you have reduced the risk of harm to as low as reasonably practical in addition to surveillance.

Posted By p winter Many thanks to all who replied - I have been away from a computer for a couple of days Thanks again for the advice

Posted By p winter Thanks again to everyone who posted - my primary concern was the position of these subbies re H&S - frankly I don't care about the IR implications, sorry if I didn't make this clear