1.3.3. Employer responsible for Health and Safety at Work

• Safe Place of Work

The Law

Under the Health, Safety and Welfare regulations 1992, it is the legal duty of the employer to ensure that the place of work is safe and without risk to health and the workplace is conducive to perform their activities so far as is reasonably practicable.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (the Management Regulations) require you to assess and control risks to protect your employees.

• Safe Plant and Equipment

As an employer you must provide equipment for use, from hand tools and ladders to electrical power tools and larger plant, you need to demonstrate that you have arrangements in place to make sure they are reasonably safe and without risk to health and maintained in a safe condition

• Think about what hazards can occur:
• If tools break during use
• Machinery starts up unexpectedly
• There is contact with materials that are normally enclosed within the machine, i.e. caused by leaks/breakage/ejection etc

Failing to correctly plan and communicate clear instructions and information before starting maintenance can lead to confusion and can cause accidents. This can be a particular problem if maintenance is during normal production work or where there are contractors who are unfamiliar with the site.

• Safe System of Work

It is a formal procedure which results from systematic examination of a task in order to identify all hazards. It defines safe methods to ensure that hazards are eliminated or risk minimised.

Method Statements or Safe System of Work is a requirement of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and is intended to provide both the client and the individuals that are carrying out the work, the necessary information to undertake the job safely.

It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees and to provide and maintain systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health.

The phrase “reasonably practicable” means a balance between the level of risk and the resources necessary to control it.

• Training, Supervision and Competency of Staff

Employers must ‘ensure that all workers have received adequate training for the purposes of health and safety, including training in the methods which may be adopted when using work equipment, and risks which such use may entail and the precautions to be taken.’

Employers should supervise workers to ensure that they are carrying out their activities with utmost care and minimal risk to themselves and others, it doesn’t mean that supervisors have to stand and watch every worker till the completion of the activity.

Competence is the ability to undertake responsibilities and perform activities to a recognised standard on a regular basis. It combines practical and thinking skills, knowledge and experience.