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Policies & Risk assessments - "reviewing" them...
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Posted By Blue
I work as a consultant and have seen so many safety policies that dont get reviewed as such - but instead merely have the old date tippexed over and a new date inserted, or just a new date written on the policy somewhere as if it has been reviewed. No modifications have happened or get inserted and therefore no actual review happens.
The same goes for risk assessments, and I am wondering if other practitioners have witnessed this too? For me, it's more common than not with so many lazy business owners just not bothering.
Your views are appreciated. Blue
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Posted By Chris Packham
Does a review necessarily result in a change? I can envisage situations where simply changing the date would indicate that the policy has been reviewed and found to be still perfectly applicable.
Chris
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Posted By Safe System
Hi Blue,
Yup, I see that all the time.
Biggest give away for me was the batch i reviewed this/last year and all the references to the CDM 94 regs...
But saying that i have also reviewed a number of up to date policies written by consultants for this year, that still contain old information in...
so its a mixture of the business owner being lazy and in some cases, the consultant too...
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
Blue
It is a common feature and not just applicable to SMEs. As the previous poster indicates, a review will not in itself result in a change to the document. However, the date of the last review or amendment is the big give away.
As a rule I do not provide services to SMEs but I have found that they are either oblivious to documentation or apathetic. Strangely most of my contacts come about through an impending visit from a regulator or following an accident. Just lately, however, it has been following a visit from an insurance inspector, perhaps this is the way forward?
Ray
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Posted By ITK
It may be that they are reviewed but they dont wish to print off reams of risk assessments every April at the review.
I have advised clients in the past that a dated review sheet at the front would suffice even if it is "reviewed no changes".
ITK.
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Posted By FAH
With regard to organisations; "Review" has many different meanings attributed it. These are generally dependant upon the perception of the organisation that owns the documentation regarding the value that they place upon the review & the system etc being reviewed as well as what they see it achieving.
There's nothing inherently wrong with only changing a set of dates & providing auditable evidence of why only the date has been changed [see Chris Packhams comment].
However, the bulk of inadequate "reviews" that I've come across definitely fall into other categories - such as "don't know - don't care" - and also over-reliance upon the consultant who actually doesn't know about intervening changes in legislation [very worrying] or changes in internal procedures/systems/organisation [also very worrying but not always the consultants' sole fault].
Frank Hallett
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Posted By Blue
Hi Ray.
Yes inspectors S21's and insurance companies requirements seem to give the companies the motivation they need at last. Sometimes it comes about via accidents - making business owners worry due to not doing anything.
Sometimes many years have gone by and the the same piece of paper has years of dates being scribbled on the form. In one instance 8 years of dates were written on the same FRA form, and upon questioning - no changes had ever been made. Accidents and near misses had happened, escape routes blocked, new legislation had been introduced, the premises had been altered, etc. This is the worst I have saw, but have seen many others like this too.
Sometimes reviews bring nothing new - I accept this, but over nearly a decade is pathetic and just points out that safety is a paperwork exercise and a chore to them. Attempting to motivate them and sort things out can be a tough journey.
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Posted By Bob Shillabeer
Surely it is not just review, because how you prove you actually reviewed it that is what this posting is really about. We have a system where each document has a timeline with previous versions held on record and each with an issue number and date so there is a comparison showing the changes. You are quite right some companies do a review by changing the date but not actually reviewing the content.
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