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Posted By brodie22
Dear All
Just looking for some thoughts on a situation we have at present.
We are a charitable organization which a part of helps place people in short term employment with local companies both small (under 5 employees) and large.
We are becoming increasinly concerned that we do not have the resource to visit each and every one of these employers sites to assess their Health & Safety procedures and risk assessments.
However,we work very closely with the employment centre who DO visit these sites and ask if they have a H&S Policy, Carry out risk asessments etc.
My query is, where do our liabilities lie,what SHOULD we be doing, would there be a legal obligation to visit all these sites or could we introduce our own form which asks these questions about Assessments, Polices etc, so that we could evidence the fact we have checked.
Or i am open to suggestions if anyone else has been in this situation before and could point me in a particular direction.
Thanks in advance.
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Posted By Kieran J Duignan
An adequate answer would require sight of the constitution or articles of asscoiation or other instruments of governance which set out your organisational objectives.
Generally speaking, what you are responsible for also reflects the contracts you undertake with whoever funds you.
At the same time, since 'practicality' and 'proportionality' are cornetstones of vialbe safety management, here are a couple of ways in which you can consider stretching your resources as effectively as possible:
1. Arrange collective monthly review meetingw with the organisations who provide placements and negotiate a common system for risk assessment and monitoring (you may well be doing them a favour in this respect), if need be with the help of a safety consultant with relevant experience
2. Arrange regular debriefings and safety discussions with the young perple for whom you have responsibility
3. Produce a quarterly illustrated magazine to highlight good practices, with illustrative pictures, as wll as stories of warnings taken from SHP court reports and similar sources
4. Arrange annual 'safety awareness' and 'health awareness' half-days, with guest speakers likely to attract reasonable audiences and press publicity (local MPs often like to have their faces in local papers; some local sports stars or former stars can be very helpful, eg. when he managed Crystal Palace, for many years former English football international & Man Utd. winger Steve Coppell did an annual fund-raising event for a local special school and some of his players turned up at their annual Summer Celebration.
5. Join ROSPA as an organisation and benefit from their magazines and inforamtion servies
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Posted By Ian G Hutchings
Brodie22
I would recommend referring to the 'safe learner' guidance and similar from the LSC. It may be worth involving an external party in meeting these requirements, or otherwise engaging some professional advice.
Ian
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Posted By Bob Youel
some really good answers have been given here so please take note
My 2 pence is this:
You need to confirm who 'controls' the placement on a day to day basis [whilst you are not there] as the 'control' test is one taken to establish who is responsible for what who etc at any given point in time should an accident take place
From a practicable point of view it would most likely be the company where the person is placed who is the 'controller' of the placement on a day to day basis so they have employer duties
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Posted By Duncan Spencer
Hi Brodie
It's all about who has authority and control over the work the individual does and the safety of the environment they will work in. More often than not this falls to the organisation that you will be placing them with. Ask yourself do you have any say over how their workplace or work are organised and managed?
I had this problem to solve once involving two hospitals. Hospital A wanted to organise a new clinic with specialist personnel from hospital B. The room was owned by hospital A so it was their liability to maintain it in a safe condition (floors walls and ceilings etc). Hospital A also purchased and owned the clinical equipment; they were therefore responsible for its calibration and maintenance. However, it was hospital B's personnel that decided how to use the equipment and took the clinical decisions. Hospital B were therefore accountable for those decisions.
It comes back to who are the directive minds here and ascertaining what it is precisely that they own and direct?
My Brother-in-law is a Director of an employment agency. He is very clear on this point. He will take responsibility for selecting agency staff against the clients recruitment criteria, but after that the H&S repsonibsility for the agency worker lie squarely with the client [employer] on the day.
Hope this helps a little.
Roebuck
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