Newsletter August 2009
New Web Site for Ai Solutions
Ai Solutions have recently republished their web site with new content and a fresh design that we hope you will like even more than the last one.
The web site uses a number of new features including an excellent search facility that allows users to research many hundreds of past topics and articles published over the 14 or so years since the company started business in 1995.
Please take a look through and contact us with your comments.
Stockport MBC win free copy of ToolKit CS for 12 months
We are pleased to announce that the winner of our July 2009 free draw is the Business Services Directorate at Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council.
We are looking forward to working with the business team at Stockport to see how the benefits of our market leading package can be accommodated by the health & safety team users there. We hope to report back on progress with them in due course; so please watch this space!
We are planning to hold another draw soon; please keep an eye open on our web site for news of this.
Submitting a Form 10
We continue to get queries from our users regarding submission of the Form 10. The confusion arises in that the HSE, after many years of planning, have introduced an on-line route for the submission of Form 10 paperwork. This was intended, we understand, for smaller businesses who lack the formal processes for CDM management. Interestingly the on-line form includes a number of 'marketing' questions' that are not directly linked to the ACoP. Furthermore, neither the ACoP nor the CDM Regulations have been amended to include the on-line form which remains a convenience for one-off works unattached to management systems.
The ToolKit Compliance System approach is rather more rigorous. It allows the automated production of the form - the one in the ACoP - using personnel who have been 'approved' by the organisation as competent to carry out the described works, creates an audit trail, accommodates version control of the document and allows automated entry of name and address information from the ToolKit management database. CDM ToolKit CS™ has been doing this since the 1994 regulations; so it is not only a very rigorous process, it has stood the test of time.
SSIP: Safety Schemes In Procurement
John Murphy, as many of you will know has been the long term manager of the CHAS organisation hosted by the London Borough of Merton. In recent months, John has been promoting the idea of saving time, effort and money in the procurement process.
The current arrangements whereby procurement departments send out complex forms for contract invitees to complete serve little more purpose than to irritate all concerned. Duplication of work in form filling is rife. Senior, respected commentators including Rita Donaghy (DWP) have backed the argument for a unified approach (see 'One Death is Too Many' Executive Summary point 36 on page 14)
The outcome has been a new organisation, the Safety Schemes In Procurement - SSIP. John has set up a management team with the following objectives:
- Educate clients that SSIP members need no Stage 1 requirement - because the quality audit will have been done
- Educate industry that the Big Problem is protectionism; they need to share information and cut time wasting, cut out inappropriate reporting, save time.
- Contractors Insurance Scheme - reduce risk and therefore premium
John sees this approach to saving time in procurement as the tip of the iceberg for British industry beleiving that there is a need to shake out bad practice and stop wasting valuable funds. It is thought the current recession will accelerate this process.
Please see the new SSIP site for more information - www.ssip.org.uk
One Death is Too Many - Rita Donaghy
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), announced the launch of an inquiry into the underlying causes of construction fatalities in December 2008. Secretary of State at the DWP, James Purnell, appointed former Trades Union Congress president Rita Donaghy as independent Chair to the inquiry and she has now published her report: 'One Death Is Too Many' (July 2009).
Following an inquiry into the underlying causes of construction fatal accidents commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in December, Rita Donaghy has published her report and recommendations.
The report makes a number of recommendations improving safety in the construction industry, extending across safety representatives, building control, the legal system, training and competence, and public procurement which Government Departments will now consider, alongside the current and future safety challenges posed by the construction industry.
The key recommendations include:
- That the Building Regulations are extended so that health and safety processes should be included when considering building control applications or building warrants.
- An awareness raising campaign so that individual workers and companies take the issues of reporting accidents more seriously.
- An investigation into the built-in delays in the system leading to prosecution and conviction or other outcomes on construction accidents.
DWP will now be consulting with the HSE, the industry, trade unions and other relevant Government Departments, to fully consider all the recommendations before responding later in the year (2009).
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.