Newsletter May 2006
CDM Changes highlighted at 11th Anniversary Seminar
The Managing Change in Health & Safety seminar held on 27th April 2006 was a great success. With around 60 attendees, the agenda included excellent presentations from health & safety providers and, of course, our keynote speaker, Richard Boland from the Health & Safety Executive. Richard updated attendees on the current state of affairs regarding the re-vamping of the CDM Regulations and their integration with the Health & Safety at Work Act.
As the industry is becoming aware, the changes are major, far reaching and explicit. The timing for the new regulations remains uncertain, in that the due process required involves the EU and other parties external to the HSE. However, there is an expectation that they will be in place for April 2007 and we will advise our readers accordingly. In the meantime, the clear intentions of the HSE are included in the slide set from Richard's presentation which, along with the other external presenters' slides, are on our web site.
Other topics covered at the seminar included an update of recent legislative changes, a briefing regarding possible corporate manslaughter legislation and a case study demonstrating how Transport for London ensures compliance with CDM regulations and disseminates project information to everyone involved by using Enterprise ToolKit CS™.
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.
Success Breeds Success
As we reported at the seminar, 2006 has been an outstandingly successful year so far for our ToolKit CS™ product. We now have major enterprises on board with our web based products including both CDM and Asbestos Management. With a customer portfolio that is second to none, we are confident of building on those successes with our dual approach database management and document management systems. Our focus is on providing solutions for our corporate customers who are looking to 'join up' information within and across large enterprises in a cost effective and timely manner. The essence of the solution, is, as ever, to gain the confidence of the users that they do in fact want to 'join up'; the will to do so must be there.
Our solution includes not only the supply of our products and services but also those of our partners where appropriate. This includes our new CAS - Complete Asbestos Solution - from the FES (Flint Environmental Services), AiS and FGP (Future Green Planet) Consortium as well as health & safety and training services from Callsafe.
Scaffolding Collapse Fatality
The Scaffolding Collapse at the new Jurys Inn Hotel Milton Keynes in mid-April hit the national news. The article from the Milton Keynes based MK News gives more local detail which will interest a wide audience because of the issues involved. The photograph was taken by ourselves.
Click images above for full sized versions.
The weekly TUC Bulletin reported the same incident as follows;
The firm responsible for a scaffolding collapse in Milton Keynes that killed one and injured over 20 was removed from a job four years ago for breaching safety regulations. North Notts Scaffolding was issued with a prohibition notice by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) at a site in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, in 2002. It has also emerged the Mansfield-based company is not registered with the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation. The scheme to train and certify scaffolders is voluntary.
One of three workers seriously injured in the Milton Keynes incident at the site of the new Jurys Inn Hotel last week has since died. John Robinson, 49, died in hospital on 14 April. It has since emerged that his son Mark was also seriously injured in the accident. HSE to undertake an investigation. Last week the site was cordoned off by the police as a crime scene.
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the construction union UCATT, said last week the tragedy 'shows us once again that more needs to be done to make the industry safe to work in.
Updates to ToolKit CS™
We shipped the latest update to our current ToolKit CS™ compliance software, including our Web enabled Enterprise software, in April. 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 this 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.