Newsletter April 2006
11th Anniversary Seminar - 27 April 2006
Places at our annual seminar at the Royal Air Force Club Piccadilly, London on 27th April 2006 are going quickly.
The guest speaker, Richard Boland from the Health & Safety Executive heads up the HSE's Construction Policy team and is responsible for the CDM Regulation revisions currently being considered by them. The changes affect both the corporate client role and independent planning supervisors represented amongst our users.
The agenda has been extended to include a presentation on Corporate manslaughter from Heald, the legal advisors, who will be reflecting on the increased litigation brought about by failure to comply with current health & safety Law.
Information about the agenda, which includes all aspects of health & safety, and pricing, is available on our web site.
Joining up - the thinking
Thinking about joining up business processes, is an enviable pastime, because it can bring very high returns. Energy, processing ideas, assembling of policies, signing off of procedures and the eternal paper-chase; each provide avenues for saving mountains of money. From Corporations to individuals, the answer is always the same: good communication means good returns. To embark on this course, we need to stretch our thinking beyond the constraints we currently live with and look at the opportunities provided by sister organisations. In essence, we have to want to 'join up'.
Perhaps this is why so many large organisations fail to take the step and reap the rewards of sharing information and so on. If the process is so simple, then the only bar to joining up is the will to do so. If financial returns were the only gain, the situation would be ludicrous enough. With Health & Safety gains to be made as well, it is difficult to see why there can be any reluctance to share information.
Our constant goal as a software provider is to make our products and services transparent to the point that information can be shared by any practical means, hopefully electronically, and with web enablement as well. We welcome the opportunity to discuss how and on what basis the joining together can be achieved and in the London Boroughs in particular. Here, there are enormous benefits to be made in sharing information about CDM for instance, not only across departments in individual Boroughs but across all Boroughs where they are either working together on specific transport projects for instance of where there is an opportunity to share policies, procedures, method statements and template documents that reflect best practice.
London Borough of Hackney
Our customers in the London Boroughs are all undergoing significant changes; none more so than in Hackney. Undergoing some internal re-engineering, the Technical Consultancy is now a provider within the newly formed 'Hackney Homes', a private company managing and maintaining the housing stock on behalf of the Council. The Consultancy is one of our recent up-graders now able to use the full benefits of our CDM Management software to manage the housing stock.
Asbestos dangers 'being ignored'
According to a recent TUC e-Bulletin, a Health and Safety Executive official has said there is still a 'worrying' lack of awareness of asbestos risks. Bill McKay, principal inspector for construction and asbestos licensing at HSE's Newcastle office, said he is shocked by the way materials containing dangerous asbestos fibres are being handled. 'Things are better now, but people still abuse asbestos,' he said. 'I find it hard to believe, but they do.' And he stressed that the removal of asbestos from buildings must be handled by properly equipped and licensed specialists.
Mr McKay, who was speaking at a seminar organised by a local mesothelioma charity, gave examples of poorly equipped building workers tackling old buildings filled with asbestos. 'There is still insufficient assessment and management of risks from asbestos in premises,' said Mr McKay. 'Contractors are often unaware that they are working with materials containing asbestos. It is this lack of knowledge and an attitude that 'it will be all right' which is worrying.'
Mr McKay said it was vital to raise awareness of the potential hazards of working with materials containing asbestos. Contractors should establish whether asbestos was present in a building and manage it appropriately, he said. At least 10 people a day die in the UK as a result of an asbestos cancer.
Updates to ToolKit CS™
We expect to ship the latest update to our current ToolKit CS™ compliance software this month. The update includes minor enhancements to our applications and some changes to our extensive CDM and Asbestos knowledge bases. This includes the new Noise Regulations.
The Callsafe Newsletter provides further information about the regulation updates and much more including the newly agreed smoking rules, falls from height and other important health & safety issues.
More Information
We regularly receive updates from our customers and contacts about changes to legislation, the latest rumours and so on. We try to be selective with what we pass on and acknowledge our sources as appropriate. If you have information of general interest in the Health & Safety, and particularly, CDM and Asbestos Management arena, then please let us know by e-mail if possible.