Can anyone help me?

I have been asked to compile a legal audit and was looking for some pointers , advice or even a proforma from someone who has had previous knowledge in this area.

From a newbie (first posting) thanks

Sound advice from Motorhead. The key words of course are 'relevant regulations'. It is very much a case of picking out from the long list you will inevitably get from registers which regulations, or parts of them, actually apply to your own situation, and that depends on the nature of your organisation and its activities. If you can tap into a trade forum, or contacts through a local branch, perhaps you could save re-inventing the wheel.

By the way, the title of your thread is somewhat misleading. Don't think for one minute that an audit against 18001, or HSG65, is going to assess the complete extent of your legal compliance. They are best practice guides, not legal registers.

Boblewis seems a little harsh on a newbie - before ruining a persons confidence in learning and scaring them away from the forums, he should ask more specific questions to know at what stage the newbie is?

Just a thought for people who already seem to know it all, I've been in the game over 20 years and still find that I can learn every day.

Newbie: check out your companies Occupational Health and safety management system manual, then try and cross reference and pick your way through it with guidance from either HSG 65 or OHSAS 18001:2007. after you get some ideas get back on the forums

I was with you 100% Grant... and ......

Hargrave41077 – Your question is too vague. Is your legal audit requirement just H&S or all encompassing? Are you looking for a full blown audit or simply a legal register? Are you after H&S, Environmental, Quality or all three, or none??? I’m not being a smart **** , but you’ll see where I’m coming from.... already you have replies assuming you are OHSAS 18001, yet you did not even mention it... 10 more posts and you’ll be labelled as a director who should know better!!!!

Whatever you are after, there will be shed loads out there to guide you in the right direction. The ‘industry’ is massive and your question is not fine tuned enough for anyone to assist you at the moment, without leading you a merry dance.

Can I suggest you hit google, HSE, LRQA, BSI etc... search engines to get your head around what you are being asked to produce, and come back with a more direct question (advising of your industry, sector, operations). You’ll get closer feed-back to your requirements.

Hope this helps.

Hi Hargrav,

Some good responses and if it is indeed the Legal register, keep it simple.

Format wise, Word Document, Title Legal Register, Insert Table, List the legislation applicable to your business, HASW Act 1974, COSHH, DSE, PUWER etc, sign and date the bottom of the page. Job done (in the simplest terms and what seems to appease most Auditors)

Si

All good points boblewis.

Perhaps the problems with 18001 stem from its history and adoption. Developed by BSI in association with a list of primarily quality assurance organisations, to compliment 9001 and 14001, and provide something that could form the basis of certification where BS 8800 had failed, it was then taken up by a host of organisations as a 'certification' service, despite the fact that most of them didn't obtain UKAS accreditation to do so, including BSI themselves at the time. There was thus already a question mark over the quality and consistency of the certifications on offer.

Add to this the fact that, in my view, 18001 doesn't provide the level of detail and background that e.g HSG 65 did.

A good management system should go well beyond legal compliance, but naturally that legal compliance needs to be there as a given. Auditing this is difficult, as with many things, as by nature an audit is a sample, a snapshot, and cannot guarantee to identify every single deficiency. These should be picked up over time by a representative audit programme.