Author Archive: Jon

HSE myth busters

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An extract from the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) website:

Do you need to wear safety footwear all the time?

An employee questions the need to wear safety footwear for the whole of their shift as they think their work does not always warrant it.safety boots

HSE Panel decision

Health and safety law only requires safety footwear to be worn where there is a real risk of injury. It is not uncommon for employers to adopt a policy requiring the wearing of safety footwear at all times, when and where there is a risk that people would not change into and out of PPE footwear during the day. We would recommend that employers and employees discuss what is really required in this case. It may be that the risks are such that sensible shoes are a preferable alternative to requiring full PPE footwear to be worn for a full 8 hour shift.

Domain information

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We have a number of websites and domains under our management for clients and associates.  

You may have been directed to this landing ‘post’ by a redirect.  If you have questions about the site you were expecting to see or need to make contact with us or the administrator for further details, please use this contact form below:

    Fees for Intervention

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    If the Health & Safety Executive visit your workplace and find that you are in material breach of health and safety law, you will have to pay for the time it takes them to identify what is wrong and to help you put things right. If you don’t break the law, you won’t pay anything.

    How much it costs

    It currently costs £129 an hour. The fee will include the costs covering the time of the entire original visit. The total amount recovered will be based on the amount of time it takes HSE to identify the breach and help you put things right (including associated office work), multiplied by the hourly rate.

    Your fee may include the inspector’s time:

    • at your business or workplace
    • preparing reports
    • getting specialist advice
    • talking to you after the visit
    • talking to your workers

    The fee can vary depending on:

    • how long the original visit was
    • the time the inspector spent helping you put things right
    • the time it took the inspector to investigate your case
    • any time we spend on taking action against you

    So, the modest cost of advice from SoPro could be money well invested.

    Contract

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    SoPro Safety are proud to announce that they have been appointed as the outsourced health and safety resource for Multiplay UK Ltd.

    Multiplay are the organisers of the UK’s biggest computer gaming festival – Insomnia, as well as Brick Live and game developer conventions such as Minecon.  The business is an events, esports and digital hosting business now in its 20th year and recently acquired by GAME Retail Ltd.

        

    The 12 month contract will be delivered by Director Jon Sullivan.

    Minecon 2015

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    Parachute Group (now SoPro Safety) provided health and safety advice services and the on-site safety presence for Multiplay UK Ltd while they were organising the biggest independent game convention for Mojang.  The event was for 10,000 fans of Minecraft who descended on Excel, London over the July weekend in 2015.

    New regulations to include Events and Exhibitions

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    The new Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM Regs) come into force in April.  Events and exhibitions of scale will fall within the scope of these regulations and the HSE is drafting guidance specifically for the events industry.  The draft regulations have been published, however the exact impact on our events and exhibitions industry is still taking shape.

    We expect there to be better formalisation of the responsibilities of the client and their appointed organisers and/or main contractors.  For well run projects this should be a fairly simple matter to comply…

    From the HSE:

    The new CDM Regs come into force on 6 April 2015 and apply to all building and construction projects, regardless of the size, duration and nature of the work.

    The main changes, outlined in general by the Health & Safety Executive, are as follows:

    • Principal designer. The replacement of CDM co-ordinator (under CDM 2007) by principal designer. This means that the responsibility for  coordination of the pre-construction phase – which is crucial to the management of any successful construction project – will rest with an existing member of the design team. 
    • Client. The new Regulations recognise the influence and importance of the client as the head of the supply chain and as the party best placed to set standards throughout a project 
    • Competence. By splitting ‘competence’ into its component parts of skills, knowledge, training and experience, and  – if they are an organisation – organisational capability, provides clarity for the industry to assess and demonstrate that construction project teams have the right attributes to deliver a healthy and safe project. 
    • The technical standards set out in Part 4 remain essentially unchanged from CDM 2007 and HSE’s targeting and enforcement policy, as a proportionate and modern regulator, also remains unchanged.

    The Regulatory package

    The new proposed Regulations and supporting guidance are all in draft form before they come into force and may be subject to changes. They offer duty holders the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the main requirements before they come into force.

    Health and Safety update

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    We recently gained a fascinating insight into the current and probable changes that are taking place with health and safety legislation and the work of the Health and Safety Executive.

    Suffice to say with their budget being cut by the order of a third that the effect is best summed up as – fewer inspections, increased costs from interventions, jailing of senior management in prosecuted cases and higher profile/higher value prosecutions.

    As an indication we understand that the HSE’s budget for FFI was about £30m – they only recovered a third of this so expect bigger fines to be levied. The FFI initiative is here to stay and may extend to local authority departments to engage in the interventions. The average fee for intervention was billed as approximately £490 but one case lead to a fee of £21,000.

    Food for thought.

    If you wish to talk about what it might mean for you please contact us.

    Glasgow 2014

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    Billed as the safest Games ever delivered – the XX Commonwealth Games.2014-08-06 23.48.25

    Jon Sullivan had the pleasure of working with the Trivandi team supporting the Organising Committee to provide assurance and safety advice to the venues in the challenging time of Bump-In, Games Time, Bump-Out and the start of Re-Instatement and hand back to the Principle Contractor in the city.

    The venue Jon worked on was the Scotstoun Sports Campus which was the most complex Glasgow venue – being a training venue for Triathlon and athletics from 13 July, plus a competition venue for Squash and table Tennis for the whole 11 days of the Games from 24 July to 3 August.  The site’s unique feature was a purpose-built, all glass squash court with arena seating within a temporary demountable structure.