Asbestos action

We've been asked advice by a very small building firm who undertook some shop refurbishment. On looking at ceiling tiles, the builder asked the shop owner if they contained asbestos and was assured that he'd had a survey carried out and this was negative.
A member of the public reported to the HSE that material which looked like asbestos was in skip in the street. Examination showed this to be crysotile and amosite (white and brown asbestos.)
What the builder should have done was:

1. Demand to see a copy of the asbestos survey report and/or
2. Take samples and have them analysed

before starting any work which would disturb the tiles. Any work involving removing the tiles would have to have been done by a licenced asbestos remover, using appropriate techniques.

Beware the CE Mark, yet again

We've just been asked our advice about an accident that occurred on a machine in Germany. This machine was purchased with a CE mark from outside the EU. The accident caused the loss of several fingers, and there is now an urgument between the purchaser and manufacturer as to who was to blame.
Remember that the "CE marking" process is one of self certification for most types of machinery, and there are obligations on the purchaser to ensure that the manufacturer had followed a rigorous process in ensuring that the machine complied with appropriate harmonised European standards and essential health and safety requirements. In such cases, it is advisable to ask for a copy of the technical file (that whoever applied the CE mark must be able to compile.).
There are also obligations under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) (or the German equivalent in this case) on the user of the equipment, who is normally the company that owns the equipment and employs people to use it. It is highly unlikely that the HSE will pursue an action against a company in another country, let alone outside the EU.
See more about CE Marking.

Culture of blame on Transocean rigs

A culture of fear and blame is rife across the operations of offshore drilling contractor Transocean, according to a leaked HSE inspection report.

The company, which BP blamed in part for the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April, was the subject of an HSE investigation across four of its North-Sea rigs last year. The resulting report, which was leaked to the RMT union, highlighted many strengths within Transocean – such as an emphasis on training, support and implementation of key safety initiatives, and good communication of safety-related incidents to personnel – but found that health and safety was in danger of being compromised by an organisational culture of “discipline, blame and zero tolerance”.

The report, which the company has had for several months, states that “unacceptable behaviours by offshore management were raised on more than one rig visited”, including “bullying, aggression, harassment, humiliation and intimidation”. Such behaviours, the report reveals, “are causing some individuals to exhibit symptoms of work-related stress, with potential safety implications”.

Evidence cited by the HSE of the negative impact the company’s culture has had on its workforce include concern among personnel that they will be punished should they be involved in an accident. Staff are also “trying to avoid risky jobs, in case they make a mistake, or have an incident and will then be fired”, and that the expected management response to an incident is “affecting reporting rates, such that some events go unreported”.

While the report underlines the inspection team’s conviction that “senior management are committed to the health and safety of their workforce”, the company’s health and safety policy statement “places emphasis on individual involvement, personal responsibility and accountability”, instead of recognising that incidents tend to result from failings in management control.

Following the leak, an HSE spokesperson said it did not want to comment in detail as it is not a public report, but confirmed: “This particular non-technical report was sent to Transocean in February. No enforcement notices were issued as a result.”

Source: SHP 20 Sept 2010

Transfer between MS Access and MS Excel

SSS have carried out work on behalf of one of clients to export data from Access to Excel and also manipulate the appearance within the spreadsheet from the Access code. Functions achieved were:

• Export of 7 queries to separate worksheets within the same spreadsheet
• Export of data to another spreadsheet, setting the cell colours dependant upon the urgency level of the data.

We can see applications of this arrangement within INTACT.

New 9001 certifications

Congratulations to VCG Colourlink who have become certified to ISO 9001:2008 with the help of Strategic Safety Systems Ltd.

Legal updates

There are some changes to legislation:

• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment) Regulations 2010
  Amends the previous regs., replacing ‘dangerous substance or preparation’ with ‘dangerous substance or mixture’ and (as from 1 December 2010 and 1 June 2015) substitutes new definitions of ‘dangerous substance or mixture’. Also other changes that do not affect those people on the SSS Register of Legislation.

• Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
  Have been updated. The main impact is the removal of the need to register for exemption. See an earlier blog on this.

SSS will be sending out issue "P" of the Register of Legislation to all those companies to whom we have supplied 14001 or 18001 systems.

Waste storage at place of production

The storage and treatment (eg shredding or compaction) of waste at the place of production has been clarified.
You no longer have to be registered as being exempt if:

• You only store waste at the place where it is produced,
• You don't bring waste from lots of different sites back to one site,
• You store waste for less than 12 months

You must store the waste in a secure place (ie ensure that waste cannot be windblown, etc.)

You may also carry out "ancillary treatment" including:

• Compaction of paper and cardboard stored within a container,
• Shredding confidential papers for crushing,
• Compacting large items, or
• Separating recyclables.

More information on this is available from the Environment Agency via this link.