Monitoring and Inspection – Contractors

As a contractor or employer you are responsible, through the appropriate line management, to ensure effective management of contractors under your control.  As such you are expected to monitor and inspect areas where contractors under your control are operating to ensure that appropriate safety health and environmental standards are being met.

Independent Audits:

We at affersafety are able to undertake independent audits of your health and safety systems for you. This will include a thorough examination of all your health and safety policies, procedures, arrangements and organisation, your risk assessments, method statements and any other systems that you may have in place. To speak to our lead Health and Safety Consultant, Paul Affleck please call on 07968 381445 or email us on info@affersafety.co.uk.

Frequency of inspection:

The timing and frequency of inspections should take into account inherent safety, health and environmental risks present on a particular site. For example areas which have been identified through risk assessment as being high risk will usually have a higher frequency of inspection than those of lower risk. Such work areas will usually have special arrangements in place such as permit-to-work systems or restricted entry requirements to control the risks in that area. These areas will usually be inspected at least once every 3 months.

Where the risk assessment shows areas which are less hazardous or are defined as low risk workplaces these will require a less frequent inspection regime but will still need to be inspected at least annually. Whichever frequency is adopted it is important that suitable records will be kept for audit purposes.

Frequency of audit:

The timing and frequency of audits will take into account inherent safety, health and environmental hazards and the standard of safety, health and environmental management currently in practice.

Based on a School / Directorate rating system of Low, Medium and High Risk, audits will be scheduled to take place at required frequencies. Where an audit identifies significant problems it may be appropriate to repeat the audit outside the normal frequency to assess and verify progress.

Self Inspection:

Workplace inspections are a valuable tool to monitor the effectiveness of safety, health and environmental practices. Self inspection is when you, as the employer or main contractor assess your own safety, health and environmental performance against agreed standards and objectives in order to recognise achievement and, where necessary, to take remedial action.

You together with your health and safety professional should be carrying out a range of different types of checks as part of normal operating procedures. These may range from informal assessment of sub-contractor’s working methods to planned formal inspections using standard inspection check-lists.

The Inspection Report should also contain a corrective action plan covering each of the significant findings.

The Action Plan should detail:

• The action recommended by you or your health and safety professional;
• Who will be responsible for carrying out the action; and
• A suitable timescale for corrective action to be completed taking into account the nature of the hazard and the degree of risk.

Workplace inspection –Safety Representatives

It is acknowledged that recognised safety representatives are entitled to inspect the workplace annually in accordance with the ‘Safety representatives and safety committees’ guidance. These inspections should be seen as in addition to and not in place of the routine inspection of the workplace by the School/ Directorate

Inspection Teams:

Ideally, the inspection, which should be co-ordinated by the person responsible for the area(s), should be conducted by a team of two or three people and include senior members of staff who are familiar with both the working practices and the safety, health and environmental standards relevant to the site and the activities which are going on.

In addition, consideration should be given to including personnel in the inspection team who are independent of the area being inspected to give a ‘fresh pairs of eyes’ so that faults / issues are not overlooked through over-familiarity.

Audit Teams

Ideally, the audit should be conducted by a team of two or three people and should include representatives of the Client.  The auditors should be familiar with both the working practices of the contractor and the relevant safety, health and environmental standards relevant to the site and on-going activities.

We are able to assist you with any monitoring, inspection or auditing that you require. affersafety are able to accompany you during any monitoring, inspection or auditing process you undertake or we are able to undertake this work for you.  Please contact our Health and Safety Consultant, Paul Affleck on 07968 381445 or email us on info@affersafety.co.uk for more details.