A Matter of Health and Safety

[Derekl]

On 06/02/2021 at 16:52, The Stationmaster said:

and, critically at the top, in bold, the form read 'For The Use of the Board's Solicitor'.  If you answered 'no' to either or both of those questions it immediately reduced any possible injury etc compensation and because of that wording in bold at the top the injured party could be legally prevented from seeing how those questions had been answered. 

 

Err no, that didn't work in that the House of Lords decided that the use of the expression "For the use of the Board's solicitor"  was insufficient to secure legal privilege - the document was not solely prepared for the purposes of litigation and is disclosable (Waugh -v- BRB in 1979). So the document was available, despite the phrase at the top. And to give BRB solicitors their due, my experience was that they were astute to comply with disclosure obligations.

[stewartingram]

I worked as a comms engineer (contractor) for the Fire Service (I won't mention which one, but it was the smallest, with the BIG ideas). The majority of the fire stations were worked by retained fire crews, ie they had "day" jobs, and were called in by pagers, so normally the stations were unmanned. Fire Control, upon receiving a 999 call, would call out particular appliances/stations via their bespoke computer system. They were also the party that called me out to a repair (though indirectly, via my Control, but the same result).

So in a nutshell, if appliance B123 had a fault, Fire Control a) took it "off the run" (ie it wasn't available to use); b) reported the fault for me to attend. I turned up at the unmanned station, climbed aboard and proceeded to fix the fault. Upon completion I signed it off with FC, and it was back "on the run". Simple? Whilst off the run, there was no chance of me hanging on whilst it sped off to an incident.

Then, a new H&S guy came in. His plan - I carry a steering lock, and enough cones to surround the appliance. Just to make sure that the appliance wouldn't be driven out with me on the roof. The Fire Service Comms Manager (ex RAF Wing Commander) who gave us the contract, and my Area Manager were aghast and  strongly opposed the idea. So did I - not enough room in my Astra van to carry all that gear. In addition, he wanted to ban me from using the fixed ladder on the rear to gain access to the roof to replace aerials. I would have to carry my own ladder.

We won on all counts.

 

Stewart 

[black and decker boy]

9 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

 

 

This is about restrictive regulations that have been imposed that actually cause more hassle than they're worth.

A really simple one of not being able to bring in fairy liquid to work if work has ran out of their non-brand washing up liquid, because fairy liquid has not been COSHH'd.

That I’m afraid is due to your employers implementation and not the regs themselves.

 

We have generic COSHH assessments for gas oil, petrol, bleach, washing up liquid & cement (amongst others).

 

no brand names listed anywhere.

They are perfectly legal and compliant.

 

no rules that say we cannot take our own into work but equally, why would we need too?

 

you are falling into the Daily Mail trap of blaming the regulations without specific knowledge of them. 

[simontaylor484]

2 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Take lorry drivers - many are "self-employed". The number of times I have learned of (and heard in a couple of cases) them being asked to "take the tacho out" so they can go further, is extraordinary. Not just their lives at risk either

This is not possible with digital tachographs .

It is an offence under Drivers hours legislation leading to heavy fines for both the operator and the driver. The operator could lose their Operators licence or have it curtailed as well as a fine.Vosa take a very dim view of this.

There are legal exceptions where this is allowed but they have to be extreme circumstances. You are allowed to go over driving time to reach a place of safety of you have fun out of driving time.

When the Foot &Mouth crisis was in full swing drivers involved in clean ups and culling were exempted from parts of the driving hours legislation.

I personally have had a driver moved without hours left under Police escort with a fresh card in duly signed by the officer concerned due to travellers trying to pinch his diesel whilst parked up overnight

 

 

Having said that I am aware of so called cowboy operators flouting the rules. 

Edited February 7, 2021 by simontaylor484
Addition to text re above post

[simontaylor484]

18 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

That I’m afraid is due to your employers implementation and not the regs themselves.

 

We have generic COSHH assessments for gas oil, petrol, bleach, washing up liquid & cement (amongst others).

 

no brand names listed anywhere.

They are perfectly legal and compliant.

 

no rules that say we cannot take our own into work but equally, why would we need too?

 

you are falling into the Daily Mail trap of blaming the regulations without specific knowledge of them

It's not just the Daily Mail.trap it's implementation .we were under similar rules at the Council any data sheets were for branded products. We were not allowed to even keep de icer spray in the van.

There are also the PUWER regulations

Edited February 7, 2021 by simontaylor484
Edited for clarity of answer

[MrWolf]

You will probably find that someone who doesn't understand the regulations is being over zealous in the hope of covering all bases. Where traceability of materials is required for a product or service, then yes, a full data sheet must be available for every element. Otherwise, a generic data sheet covers all substances that employees / public might reasonably come into contact with. My experience is mostly chemicals used in engineering though, which can have slightly more serious consequences from their misuse than a bottle of washing up liquid. That said, I have seen a kettle to which was attached a sticker that said "Caution, very hot water". I assumed it was a joke. Anyone who couldn't figure that out for themselves is probably sitting in a corner eating crayons right now.

But it was in a council building...

 

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by MrWolf
PostScript!

[simontaylor484]

We had a wall mounted water boiler. It was like a Burco tea urn but plumbed into the mains water feed. Someone has spent time typing up instructions for use and taped them on to the front.

 

At times you couldn't make it up what occurred 

[black and decker boy]

The last bastion of the jobsworth: the British civil service & local council

[Colin_McLeod]

On 06/02/2021 at 12:17, APOLLO said:

It used to be called Common Sense - seems to be now extinct. 

 

Brit15

Indeed.

On this forum in an early thread about Covid19, anyone who mentioned common sense was seriously taken to task by one particular member, especially if you could not provide detailled references supporting what you had said.

 

 

[ess1uk]

On 06/02/2021 at 13:20, stewartingram said:

Before I retired I was working as a contractor on the Underground. I was one of a number of engineers who responded to faults as they arose, being directed by my seniors to wherever to do a "box change" as they had remotely diagnosed the fault. 90% of the time they were right; as one of the old school who in my previous job had to go out and diagnose, fix by changing, then repair the broken part, I thought it was money for old rope!

We had teams on 12hr shifts, based in the office/mess room until called. (Again much easier to do, my previous job saw me go from fault to fault). Now the point is, we had some members on shift who, to be blunt, were plain lazy. One in paricular stands out.

If the phone from "upstairs" rang (ie a potential job to do), he walked to the other end of the room - answering it would probably mean he was given the job.

If he did get given the job, he would try every excuse in the book not to go - you name it he tried it.

Same thing on arrival at sight. He had become H&S rep (almost self appointed) and again tried to get away from site on any H&S excuse. But of course if he really had to stay, there were excuses not to complete it. (In other words he wasn't technically good enough but came up with an excuse).

Now being H&S rep for the teams, led him to get involved with the H&S manager on site. Mind you, some of the things that one came out with often seemed to be bureaucratic - but he was in the paid post so had his job to do. Our engineer worked his way in with the H&S manager, his aim was to become his assistant we believed, just to get out out of doing a "real" job. Shows that a lot of the job was actually job-creation in my book; the manager actually tried to get him there but HR wouldn't create the post.

And the ironic thing? Just before I retired, he got a manager's job on one of the new contracts we got, actually to do with the signals upgrades on the tube. Now, presumably, he HAS to get the job done, just the opposite of the way he used to "work"!

But my sources tell me that some of his old ways still persist, like sneaking off early well before the end of shift so that he wasn't available for late items in that shift.....

I think I know them!

[Nearholmer]

22 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

about Covid19, anyone who mentioned common sense was seriously taken to task by one particular member, especially if you could not provide detailled references supporting what you had said.

 

Possibly by me. I don't take a lot of pains to disguise my scepticism about the concept of common sense, because far too often its a cover-phrase for coming out with the first thing that pops into person's head, and which proves to be a load of nonsense on further delving.

 

 

 

 

[Edwin_m]

One old H&S chestnut was the alleged banning of Christmas lights from offices due to fire risk.  

 

But I have actually seen a set of Christmas lights in an office catch fire.  What's more it was within sight of the company safety officer, who had previously raised no objections.  

[Colin_McLeod]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

It's not just the Daily Mail.trap it's implementation .we were under similar rules at the Council any data sheets were for branded products. We were not allowed to even keep de icer spray in the van.

There are also the PUWER regulations

 

So how did that Council empty the bins then, not knowing what was in them?

[MrWolf]

2 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

So how did that Council empty the bins then, not knowing what was in them?

 

Got a private company to do it. Then probably got into bed with them in a green, self sustaining waste recycling site turnkey project that was anything but. 

[Barry O]

we had to place a warning notice on the gun barrels of Challenger 2 as the HSE reckoned they were dangerous.. well yes they are.. but they didn't understand that sort of danger.. the exhaust ports also have a sign . "this exhaust can get hot!"  yep.. it does and it was included in all safety briefings.

 

As I mentioned before the advice I received from the senior HSE people was.. challenger anyone who says it breeches HSE Regs. .. if it did breech regs then .. follow the rags and get it sorted..

 

Baz