Question: Can a company request that all new equipment installed at a site are PUWER assessed by the company doing the installation?

Similar case to when used equipment is relocated from a factory to another. Is the company doing the installation responsible to provide an updated PUWER assessment?

Thanks

Mr Curious

As I am employed within a maintenance company which conducts installation, relocation works and PUWER assessments we quote to conduct the PUWER assessment on behalf of our client in the first instance.

This to ensure that our client capturers this requirement and ensures that we meet our obligations as a competent contractor by ensuring our client understands the need for this to be conducted.

Our engineers have all completed PUWER Assessment courses and are qualified carry out such works, whereas the client may not know what is required to fully fulfil this obligation competently.

As the equipment and system installers, we always install the machines to the requirement of all current regulations and the manufacturer’s instructions, and don’t just tick the box as indicated by Kate just because we carried out the works. We actually know what is required to gain full compliance and the clients ongoing obligations in the future, before bringing the equipment into service.

Perhaps that is why we are never the cheapest quote in town.

On multiple occasions the CE marked equipment purchased by the clieht is fit to sell from the manufacturer but would not comply with PUWER when initially installed for use.

As a very simple example there are numerous machines sold with extraction connection points but not with extraction systems attached. This is where the PUWER Assessment can capture the lack of  LEV on such occasions and ongoing requirement for statutory inspections when installed.

As a bonus if nothing else it ensures that our client recognises the fact that a PUWER assessment is required as this is from our experience a rare feat in the first instance.

The admonishment from overall responsibility for the safety of the equipment installed on a client site I didn’t think was the point of this discussion, whereas whether they could if needed ask their Installer to carry out the PUWER element action on their behalf if qualified to do so.

The large multinational defence and engineering companies that we work for are all well aware of the PUWER Regulations. It is however a sad fact that the larger the company the harder it appears to be to keep everything compliant, even though all the procedures are in place for capturing such situations and are there to help them to do so.

Some of these companies have very large estates or sites which require anywhere up to a couple of hundred Project Managers to get everything installed and compliant as projects and works come in throughout the year. These managers are by no means experts in all the fields which they are required to cover, so are not fully aware of all the requirements for compliance.

They in fact rightly or wrongly require their subcontractor to advise them on what they actually need to fulfil the contract and keep them on the straight and narrow regarding compliance.

The larger the company the less of a scheme of requirements we receive for a project to be undertaken. So we assist by ensuring that they capture everything we know off, that is required for compliance at the time of installation.

Or at the time of tender we offer the services of our engineering and safety engineers to write their scheme of requirements (at a cost) on their behalf, in order to enable them to tender the works in the knowledge that the scheme of requirements not only captures the equipment and systems needed to be installed, but also the compliance and documentation required at hand over such systems that must be completed, and ongoing maintenance/inspection requirements for the life of the system.

The fact that we mentioned not to forget PUWER usually gets followed up by, can we do that for them and thus providing a turnkey solution.

In reality their own procedures should have ensured that the project was sufficiently scoped, installed, and all safety requirements complied with prior to its being brought into service, but I have consistently found in large organisation with huge estates, that the first time that the SHE team sees a new item of equipment can be up to a year later or by chance the next time they are in the area and that’s the time when all the safety compliance issues are exposed.

Using Peters example I would expect a smart customer to have a scope of works for a new Mixer (perhaps in the first instance not mentioning combustible substances) to install a fully compliant system which the installer on the clients behalf then completes, perhaps PUWER assesses and brings into service.

If 6 months later the client wishes to change the substance, then hopefully their Management of Change procedure kicks in initiating a COSHH assessment for the new substance being proposed to identify it is combustible and perhaps explosive.

At that point their COSHH and management of change procedure, if appropriate should instigate a DSEAR Risk assessment to be conducted to identify the risks and prior to the substance being introduced and process being changed in order to capture any remedial actions or changes of equipment that must be implemented.

This might involve a further PUWER assessment if the existing equipment is modified but if replaced the new system will require a new PUWER.

Nobody is expecting a client to take a contractor’s word that something is compliant, they require documented evidence, completed by a competent and qualified Suitable Qualified Experienced Person (SQEP) to provide that information.

In our case that happens to be ourselves as the Installer and if we are not SQEP we either don’t take on the work in the first instance, or we 3rd party sub contract it to someone who can fulfil those requirements for our clients.

Please don’t tar all contractors with the same brush as being unqualified, unscrupulous operators looking to make a killing and a fast buck at the cost of the client’s safety.

Perhaps before Peter retired the world was a better place and everything was compliant and up together, but sadly in reality we consistently find that is presently not the case and we must then attempt to guide, persuade, and re-educate our clients where possible.

Edited by user 29 March 2023 13:13:25(UTC)  | Reason: spelling correction

Hi John

Before I retired the World was NOT in a better place and non compliances are to be found in organisations of whatever shape and size!

However, one part of your response caught my eye:

In reality their own procedures should have ensured that the project was sufficiently scoped, installed, and all safety requirements complied with prior to its being brought into service, but I have consistently found in large organisation with huge estates, that the first time that the SHE team sees a new item of equipment can be up to a year later or by chance the next time they are in the area and that’s the time when all the safety compliance issues are exposed.

This is NOT a comment on you, the contractor you work for nor any other SQEP contractor!.....

I don't see it as being down to the client's SHE team to do PUWER assessments or anything else in the management of health and safety OTHER than to advise the line managers who should be owning H&S as an integral part of the line management function.

If that happens (and I do realise that it does - ALL too frequently) then it is an indictment of the lack of proper allocation of responsibilities - first they outsource the entire excercise to a contractor, then they wait for the in house SHE team to identify problems at some point in the future.

Neither the contractor NOR the SHE team are best placed to understand the day to day working of what happens under the line manager's watch.

However, both the contractor AND the SHE team may be able to assist line managers do THEIR job.

Yes, you still have to do conformity assessment for equipment built in-house.

Except now conformity assessment in the GB market is identified by UKCA marking to designated standards

PPE however has had its CE status extended to January 2025