Occasionally our staff along with people from other agencies and organisations are required to work in a temporary office location for a few days on rotataion.We reecntly had an incident in one of these where a chair collapsed.

This was a plastic seated folding chair with a metal frame. On inspection the chair frame was found to be rusted under the seat, witht eh fixing rivets completely rusted through.

This could have been a serious incident- concrete floor and adjacent filing cabinets, the IP is having physiotherapy for back injury paid for by employer.

When I asked the safety advisor for the provider of the office about inspection of equipment, storage, records etc the  response has been along the lines of its contracted out and the contractor deals with all that sort of thing, which does not reassure me that anyone is in control of this aspect of the facility or given it much thought.

On the back of this I am looking at the whole question of temporary office use, particulary chairs etc. I dont want to go down the route of having funiture inspections added to the RA, but I would like to go back to basics and look at specs or standards for this type of equipment so I can discuss with the Organisers in a sensible fashion- but I cannot find anything- can any one give me a steer or had any previous dealings with this type of situation?

The devil is in the detail - of the hire contract.

You need someone with experience to review before signing up otherwise you will end up documenting a start / finish date and price for the period with no consideration of landing / uplift, services, utilities, EQUIPMENT, security.

You could also remind the provider that whilst it may be contracted out under UK law no terms can be included permitting them to distance themselves from liability in the event of death or injury

 Thank you Steve, there are a few in there that look really useful.

Roundtuit, thanks for the advice, unfortuately this is not our contract so I cannot see it, we are part of a group providing services to the organiser of an event.  There is a providers & users review meeting comming up, with the event organisers and their safety contractor, when this incident will be raised Hence my uncharacteristic desire to quote specs and standards rather than rely on reasoned discussion.

My concern is that the safety team  who are on a contract to the facility providers don't seem to have grasped  the point that the responsibility for ensuring that upwards of 200 people from diffeerent organisations potentially sitting on dodgy chairs cannot be ignored.