As a Funeral Director I have to comply with a wide range of legislation, external environments often present planning and strategic difficulties. Where do I start?

You should have a plan in mind of how your safety system should operate, what training your employees need, who will carry out risk assessments and how these will be communicated to those affected. You should also have a system for monitoring safety arrangements, which should include corrective action when this is necessary. This organisation, together with the arrangements necessary for implementation should be stated in your Health, Safety and Environmental Policy – a legal requirement if you have more than five employees. Read More

HSE Guidelines on Safety Credentials

Ensuring that contractors have a basic understanding of health and safety prior to starting work is common practice. Frequently, contractors are subjected to clients’ ‘pre-qualification’ or ‘Stage l’ assessments when tendering for work and in recent years the development of various assessment schemes to confirm contractors’ basic safety credentials have become common place. Read More

My business operates in a high risk environment and I have to comply with everything from ‘DSEAR’ to food hygiene legislation. Where do I start?

The simple answer is you need to have a clear picture in your mind of how your safety management system is to be organised. This will be captured within the text of your Health, Safety and Environmental Policy, a key legislative requirement if you have more than five employees. This needs to be matched by a fully transparent approach to safety that is unequivocal and accessible not only to you, but also to your staff as well as public inspectors. Read More

As Commercial Property owners we have a wide range of legisltation with which we must comply. The situation is further complicated by your obligations to and relationships with tenants. Where do I start?

Ultimately the division of Health and Safety responsibilities is often the subject of negotiation between landlords and tenants and will consequently vary from case to case according to what is stated in the lease. Steps should be taken to ensure that the terms of the lease are very clear on the matter. Read More

How can I encourage my managers and staff to adopt and maintain a positive appraoch to safety?

According to ‘IOSH’ (The Institute Of Safety and Health) the culture of an organisation is ‘The characteristic shared attitudes, values, beliefs and practices of people at work concerning not only the management of risks that they encounter but also the necessity, practicality and effectiveness of preventative measures.’ Such factors therefore combine to form the way an organisation collectively thinks lives and thrives. Read More