Posted By Caithriona Duggan What is the criteria (ie minimum no. of employees- 20 ?) for requiring a safety officer - full time or part-time on a construction site in the UK. What is the reference legislation? Thanks in advance, Caithriona.

Posted By MAK sorry Caithriona I'm not much help, but could this requirement have originated from either of these 2: The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations (HSCER) 1996 The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations (SRSCR) 1977

Posted By MAK the Toecap could be on to summat. its more common to have safety officers who are nominated persons on site from my experience. Where a breach is noted then "report it to the site manager" for example, "site manager will provide the Site inductions" etc. then possibly the safety rep for the company will do a safety audit periodically. I havent come across any specific numbers required so far.

Posted By Caithriona Duggan Irish legislation is very specific in this regard, basically a contractor who has over 20 persons under his direct control at any one time on a site or normally more than 30 persons under his direct control at any one time engaged in construction work then he has to appoint a safety officer. Any more enlightening thoughts on this matter ???

Posted By Chris Harrison surely its going to be down to the risks on site, which will directly result from the type of construction being carried out. i have come across site with well over 100 people on site, the site manager has an assistant to conduct inductions etc but only a monthly site audit from a safety officer. as mentioned earlier its all down to costs, the house builders are in it specifically for profit and there costs are easily seen. civil engineering projects on the other hand will regularly run into hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds, as such the cost of a specific safety officer can easily be buried among the costs. look at T5 heathrow, there were probably as many safety officers at times as workers on site (granted an exageration to make the point)

Posted By Ian Mitchell Caithrionna is right. The answer is clear enough. Unlike the RoI, the UK does not have a specific regulatory requirement for permanent H&S officers to be based on site. Various reasons such as best practice, client stipulations etc. may dictate a need for one, but not the law itself. Cheers