'Elf and Safety

Words to strike fear and dread into every tradesmans heart. The awful 'Elf & Safety executive reaches ever further into every aspect of the construction industry.

From safety directives concerning how much you're allowed to lift, to where your customers are allowed to go, to the COSHH data sheets on the materials themselves. In some regards the HSE accepts that it's onto a loser. If a product is kept small enough to be a safe two man lift, we all know that on site workmen are going to try to lift it themselves.

Obviously everyone wants beteter safety on site - but not to the point where it interferes with the effective running of (genuinely safe) working practices.

Earlier in the year the HSE announced a new tool for SME's [1] to assess their health and safety.

The actual tool can be found at The Indicator.

The hope is that insurance companies will take note of employers who perform well against the questions on this indicator. Their isn't a great deal of evidence that this has happened, but it does seem like the executive are making real attempts to assist small employers.

Lets hope this is a trend that continues.

[1]	SME stands for Small and Medium Employers. The HSE website doesn't go out of it's way to explain this.

Posted by Buildingtrade.org.uk on 2005-11-23 14:25:49.
Categories: materials, regulations

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