April is a New Year in all but name for many of us. The turning of the financial 'wheel-of-fortune' by Mr Brown and his colleagues enforces a regulatory twist to the conduct of our affairs both personal and business. We have new budgets to administer and new targets to meet; what joy! Considering the pain involved in providing them, there needs to be some consolation, surely? This together with the strong whiff of government changes, elections and the continuing and steady march of ever tougher legislation advancing our way makes change inevitable; eventually. New Years are also times to reflect on the changes taking place over time; to assess how health & safety practice has actually advanced the cause of safe working for instance?
Few will argue that HSE legislation has not changed attitudes in the workplace; the question remains as to how far and how fast should we be travelling with these matters. With nearly 1 year gone since the new Asbestos Legislation, are your plans in place for asbestos management or are you just beginning to realise that surveys are simply the start to a protracted management process? With over 10 years of CDM experience behind us, the changes to that legislation are now in the open consultation stage. Stephen Wright and his team are looking forward to an open debate on the issues and you are encouraged to take an active part in this; details are here, so don't miss the opportunity to take part!
The real New Year, or if you prefer, the first quarter, is often an unenviable time; cold, quiet, unfriendly, inter. Springtime is much better. And as you will see below, we are ready with new updates (including the Working at Height Regulations), new products in the wings and new Partnerships to share with you to help you comply with the management of health & safety legislation.
We are pleased to announce the release of Service Pack 6 at the end of March 2005. This release is part of our regular free update of our current software products and is available to all customers on annual renewal.
Service Pack 6 includes the following updates;
Transport for London (TfL) are a major user of ToolKit CS™ and use it for their CDM management. Now with several hundred users, the organisation is keen to engage with sister organisations and contractors in the TfL area to see how they can establish better, electronic, communications with them. The issues include not only sharing information and the consequent time savings and elimination of errors and delay but also delivering best practice.
Consultations between EDF Energy and TfL are advancing; these are two major ToolKit CS™ users and both are trialling our Enterprise solutions giving permissioned on-line access. The benefits to be gained from this approach are clear; the discussion continues with the detail of how and when they can be achieved. We are helping to facilitate those discussions through bi-monthly review meetings with our users. If you are interested in taking part to see how we can involve you, please contact us. The next meeting, hosted by EDF Energy is in London on 14th April 2005.
Just about everyone is aware that customers' needs are not met by installing a call centre with inexpert staff protected by protracted press 1 for XYZ etc marketing interfaces! Everyone, that is, except some customer support mangers. We believe our customer facing approach is good at a telephone support level but want to enhance our service through our web interface.
Our Community Web Site is a new layer of service provision developed to meet the continuing need for up to date information beyond the 'marketing brochure' found on so many web sites. To work well, we need you to register and take part in the continuing development of this site to meet your CDM and Asbestos Management needs. Registration is easy and free! The instructions are here and if you have any problems at all, then please call us.
Steve Jones and his team at IT Showcase have published a case study about EDF Energy and how they use our ToolKit CS™ software to save time in the management of CDM in their business. Thank you Steve.
Our Partners at Callsafe Services continue to provide a monthly review of health and safety information via their own website. This month they have included Working at Height Regulations, Physical Agents Noise Directive, Guidance for Reducing Manual Handling in Kerb Laying, Drugs and Alcohol and Prosecutions. If you do not already subscribe to their newsletter, then now would be a good time to have a look at it.
Please review our web pages or call us for more information on our CDM and Asbestos Management products. Product data sheets are available as PDF file downloads from our web site.