Great  post,im interested in views and replys.

An employer or a self employed person are responsible for providing suitable PPE in response to a Risk Assessment.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/ppe.htm

Your volunteers are not self employed persons otherwise they would be issuing your employer with an invoice.

So that leaves one person responsible......

Nothing to stop you asking the volunteers if they have kit they could bring BUT you can't ask them to volunteer AND pay for PPE to satisfy the employers Risk Assessment, nor can you set the rules for the PPE if you are not providing it.

Take a look at the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

Section 1 states:

1.=(l) The provisions of this Part shall have effect with a Preliminary. view to-

(a) securing the health, safety and welfare of persons at work ;

(b) protecting persons other than persons at work against risks to health or safety arising out of or in con- nection with the activities of persons at work ; 

If your volunteers are carrying out work then they would the not be covered by para (a)? If you don't consider them to being at work then I would take the view that para (b) applies.

Volunteers are not employees. HSWA requires that PPE is provided freely to employees. 

I would question how building a stone wall is a high risk activity. 

Under the common law, voluntary organisations and individual volunteers have a duty of care to each other and others who may be affected by their activities.

A duty of care does not require the provision of PPE. 

Originally Posted by: SteveL

I would question how building a stone wall is a high risk activity.

Some desk-top thoughts

1) Location - typically along uneven dirt tracks or across ridged fields possibly adjacent to highways / waterways (canals, rivers or lakes) / rail lines

2) Materials - alakli cements, rough stones, flying debris from hammer trimming, wind blown dusts/fragments

3) Tools - typically hammers and chisels that can split or mushroom, wheel barrows and carts that can unexpetedly tip

The Countryfile crew are always "geared up" when filming dry walling - other rural programmes are available

Suitable gloves and safety specs would be available for a combined price of less than £5 per set - I can't see how that could be seen as unreasonable. As for safety shoes, you have the choice of either supplying them, or asking volunteers to supply their own if they already own a pair. Safety shoes can cost around £16. So around £21 per person.

In all cases if they supply their own you would have to inspect them and send those home that didn't meet the requied standards.

No matter what your choice, you cannot force people to purchase their own PPE, nor can you allow people to work without the proper PPE. As it is volunteers I suspect employment law doesn't apply (please correct me if I am wrong) but the HASAW act 1974 does.

How many volunteers are there?

"anyone who is capable of gettin g themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job" - Douglas Adams

The organiser has at least one employee so HASAWA applies.

The volunteers are not employees but must be protected as per Section 3.

If  your risk assessment saiys that PPE is required then the volunteers have to wear it.

Who pays for that PPE is open to debate, however if your volunteers turn up with unsuitable gloves, specs or boots what will you do? Send them home?

Often comprimise is sought in these situations with the organiser providing gloves and specs and depending on the length of service required, ask the volunteers to provide thier own boots.

Originally Posted by: SteveL

I would question how building a stone wall is a high risk activity. 

The wall is over 6ft in some places, some of the stones are extremely large (need gloves and boots to avoid finger and toe injuries), some parts of the wall are unstable and stones could fall when working near them, some parts of the wall are on sandy beaches or the stone has shattered (need specs/goggle to stop sand/dust getting in eyes). 

Originally Posted by: Dazzling Puddock

The organiser has at least one employee so HASAWA applies.

The volunteers are not employees but must be protected as per Section 3.

If  your risk assessment saiys that PPE is required then the volunteers have to wear it.

Who pays for that PPE is open to debate, however if your volunteers turn up with unsuitable gloves, specs or boots what will you do? Send them home?

Often comprimise is sought in these situations with the organiser providing gloves and specs and depending on the length of service required, ask the volunteers to provide thier own boots.

Very sensible suggestion, thank you. 

Any thoughts on these if people don't have boots? https://www.wish.com/product/5b56f3674a4a1b6d4ca52323?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=goog_shopping&_display_country_code=GB&_force_currency_code=GBP&pid=googleadwords_int&c=%7BcampaignId%7D&ad_cid=5b56f3674a4a1b6d4ca52323&ad_cc=GB&ad_curr=GBP&ad_price=16.00&campaign_id=6493229882&gclid=Cj0KCQiAvc_xBRCYARIsAC5QT9lxXJhTbNab6YbuxmZ-7vm0nwwbgQvOD3uy4wqX4Ew862Sp-6_u1-4aApmVEALw_wcB

Avoid - these "slip-on" toe caps as they offer no protection to the wearers ankle, upper and side foot (behind the toe cap) nor any mid-sole protection.

They are designed for visitors to walk around inside facilities with blanket PPE requirements

Edited by user 31 January 2020 11:07:57(UTC)  | Reason: FFS

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

"anyone who is capable of gettin g themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job" - Douglas Adams

Almost as good as

Gods Final Message To His Creation is written in fire in letters thirty feet high on the far side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet of Preliumtarn, which orbits the star Zarss, which is located in the Grey Binding Fiefdoms of Saxaquine. The long path to the message is lined with souvenir stands at spaced-out intervals.

When Marvin reads the message, it says, “We apologise for the inconvenience”.

Also, Douglas Adams

I sometimes think of this when I’m trying to keep senior management out of trouble and employees safe.

They are getting the labour for free! So, buying a couple of simple bits of PPE sounds like good value for money. It does however take some time to wear in safety footwear sometimes, so perhaps the polite way to do this is ask if they have these items, they can bring in, in order to save the charity (or whatever) these costs. If they do all good especially the footwear, but if not still good value. Perhaps if buying boots, you say you have to ask for a minimum commitment from them, so they don’t get footwear for one day’s work. I agree with the other commenters its required.

Chris

As to whether H&S law applies to volunteers or not: that's a complicated question. In my view we have a duty to people engaged in our undertaking, and for many large charities this includes volunteers. Can you do the work without volunteers? If not, then for H&S purposes treat them as employees. HSE's only definitive statement that I'm aware of on this is that volunteers are not employees for RIDDOR purposes.

A question to ask yourself is how would I explain my failure to provide PPE to a judge? s3 alone would make that tricky...

Yes, the regs do restrict the issue of PPE to employees, but see my first two paragraphs.

HSE now has a volunteers 'czar' who is working on a strategy for volunteering. He has understood that for many charities volunteers are not a nice to have, but essential. He is dues to report back to HSE at some point, his findings will be interesting, and for people like me, useful.

Now for an additional but in some ways similar question: should we issue PPE to ministers of religion?

John

I agree Ray, similar bit not the same:

https://www.shponline.co.uk/in-court/st-albans-fc-fined-after-volunteers-death-from-roof-fall/

Originally Posted by: chris42

Originally Posted by: jwk

Now for an additional but in some ways similar question: should we issue PPE to ministers of religion?

When they are doing what exactly? Why would they need it ? 

Chris

What they are doing is any one of a number of odd jobs, from shifting loads to a bit of light DIY, maybe some gardening or traffic marshalling, maybe clearing used hypodermics from the car park... that sort of thing. Some of this they probably shouldn't be doing, but they do anyway. The interesting thing is that they also are not employees...

John

Edited by user 31 January 2020 16:03:03(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Tricky one st425.

If the person was an employee then the PPE Regulations say that the PPE should result in the employee being "adequately protected" but teh regulations do not define what that means.

So, I think you then have to go back to the parent legislation, i.e. HSWA which sets the same standard for both employees (Section 2) and others (Section 3), i.e. to do what is "reasonably practicable", which means, whatever the case law you fall back on, considering the risk and balancing reduction in risk v cost (in time, money and effort).

Now this is where HSE get confused with the difference between hazard and risk. In L25 the guidance on the PPE Regs they say:

"PPE is not necessary where the risk is insignificant, for example, in most workplaces there will be some risk of people dropping objects onto their feet, but it is only where objects heavy enough to injure the feet are being handled that the risk will be high enough to require the provision of safety footwear."

HSE also says on its webpages that you should never omit PPE "just because it's a 5 minute job", but this statement does not reflect the level of potential risk.

So you could have a heavy object being handled but with absolutely minimal chance of dropping it onto e.g. someone's foot - therefore very low risk. Conversely, the object(s) might be lighter but might have sharper edges and be much more likely to be dislodged from e.g. a worktop - much higher risk and protective footwear (and more) would be much more likely to be a requirement - BUT depending on what each person in the vicinity is doing.

So, in effect both pieces of HSE guidance are largely based on considering the "hazard" rather than the "risk".

Both of the prosecutions referred to in this thread resulted in guilty pleas so we don't know what would have happened had they gone to trial. In the railway case it is possible that the defendant might have been found guilty for reasons other than non-provision of PPE and we don't even know whether the charge was worded so as to link the breach with causation of the accident. Struck on the legs by a very heavy rail - what PPE would have been expected? Not your run of the mill hard hat, eye protection, hi viz, gloves and boots.

So, to your volunteers helping to build a stone wall. Not all of them are likely to be in the direct line of fire when a stone falls off, or the wall collapses. So what is reasonably practicable is going to vary both in terms of what each volunteer does, and for how long they might be at risk.

So, for some, or most, gloves (that for most could be on shared issue and reused on the next visit, perhaps by different users) are going to be reasonably practicable.

However, the nature of  these volunteers is such that many will probably come in their own sturdy walking boots. That might be all that is required for many of those turning up, with focus on who needs protective footwear being confined to those at the "sharp end"! [and, of course, with the overriding presumption that any PPE should be the last line of defence].

If you start off with the presumption that every single volunteer will need to have safety boots provided whether they turn up once or every week for a year, could easily make the voluntary activity a non starter.

Now, of course, if we were to reimagine the project as building a 6 foot high flood defence, with most of the workforce being volunteers, then you might have a vehicle loaded up with very big stones or blocks and lifting equipment, and quite likcly more people would be at risk for longer periods. Different ball game and you probably start off with a larger budget.

.

Edited by user 01 February 2020 16:27:59(UTC)  | Reason: Changed font to highlight quotes from HSE