Health & Safety Flashcards
What document provides health & safety guidance for RICS professionals?
Surveying safely: health and safety principles for property professionals - 2nd edition, November 2018
This guidance note came into effect on 1 February 2019
What is the purpose of Surveying safely guidance note?
Sets out basic, good practice principles for the management of health and safety for RICS-regulated firms and RICS members.
What does the Surveying safely guidance note include?
- Personal responsibilities for RICS members and corporate responsibilities for RICS-regulated firms
- Relevance to RICS professional groups
- Assessing hazards and risks
- RICS Members work place
- Occupational hygiene and health - Mental health
- Visiting premises or sites
- Fire Safety
- Residential property surveying
- General procurement and management of contrators.
What is included in 1. Personal responsibilities for RICS members and corporate responsibilities for RICS-regulated firms
- 1 Influencing factors - complying with relevant law
- 2 Personal responsibilities - Individuals employed by RICS-regulated firms have a direct responsibility to ensure that corporate health and safety policies and procedures are practised effectively and competently. It is therefore essential that individuals have the necessary skills, knowledge, training and experience to carry out these tasks.
- 3 ‘Safe person’ concept - means that each individual assumes individual behavioural responsibility for their own, their colleagues’ and others’ health and safety while at work.
- 4 Corporate responsibilities - RICS-regulated firms should have in place a management process designed to identify foreseeable risks and should put in place means to reduce these risks to acceptable levels such that the tasks, activities, objectives and goals of the RICS-regulated firm can be fulfilled successfully and safely.
- 5 In the event that it ‘all goes wrong’ - potential for legal proceedings, accidents have to be investigated and learnt from.
What are the responsibilities of the organisation
selection: everyone having, or being capable of developing, the job skills and competence to meet the demands of their work activities
training: including providing knowledge about the potential hazards in a working environment
information: providing staff with information about the risks and control measures associated with their working environment. This information may be generic in nature or it may relate to specific sites
equipment: providing staff with equipment that is suitable for the purposes for which it is intended, and everyone understanding its use and limitations
safe systems of work: these ensure that work activities are undertaken safely
instruction: individuals must receive clear instructions, and receive supervision and expert support where necessary, relating to:–the work activities required–the operation of any equipment and–appropriate safe systems of work.
supervision: supporting staff with clearly defined lines of communication
personal protective equipment (PPE): providing individuals with appropriate personal protective equipment that meets appropriate specifications.
What do the individual responsibilities include
performance: being competent to perform their work safely (including understanding the limits of their competence (skills, knowledge and experience)
control: being able and prepared to work within accepted or designated systems of work
adaptability: being able to recognise and adapt to changing circumstances at all times
vigilance: remaining vigilant, at all times, for their own safety and that of colleagues and others
awareness: being able to recognise their own abilities and limitations
teamwork: being an effective member of a team
What is a risk assessment?
A risk assessment is an examination of a task, job or process that you carry out at work for the purpose of identifying the significant hazards, the risk of someone being harmed and deciding what further control measures you must take to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
Am I qualified to carry out a risk assessment
A risk assessment should always be carried out by a person who is experienced and competent to do so, competence can be expressed as a combination of Knowledge, Awareness, training, and experience
Why carry out a risk assessment?
To reduce hazards and limit the chance of harm being caused.
Without a risk assessment being done you could be prosecuted and fined.
What are the steps of a risk assessment?
- Identify the hazards - Case Study - slip hazard on sawdust, trip hazard on off cuts of wood
- Identify those at risk - JPS staff and members of teh public
- Identify existing control measures - N/A
- Evaluate risk - Risk high and likely
- Decide/Implement control measures - Control measure to tidy site
- Record assessment - Record assessment on case file
- Monitor and review - Monitor throughout onsite activities
- Inform
What is a method statement
Method statements are documents that detail the way in which tasks should be completed to adhere to safe working practices.
Why do a method statement
Method statements demonstrate that you’re doing things safely and legally
What is the health and safety law relating to auctions?
Section 6 of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 covers the sale of second hand plant and machinery at auction.
It broadly places duties on anyone who designs, manufactures, imports or supplies any article for use at work, to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that it will be safe. It applies to new and second hand articles.
The duties extend to:
carrying out or arranging for any necessary testing and examination;
providing adequate information to those supplied with the articles about their use and maintenance;
providing any necessary revisions of that information.
What is Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations? 2008
Sets out the responsibilities of persons in the “new on the market” supply chain. This includes duties to supply machinery, partly-completed machinery or safety components that comply with the Regulations
What is the division of responsibilities between the auctioneer and the seller
Responsibility largely depends on which party is most familiar with the goods being sold and what is involved in the sale (information, spares etc.). An important point is that neither party can completely evade responsibility.
The extent of each party’s responsibility will vary with the contract or type of auction and two common arrangements are described below:
Collective auction
Collective auctions are where the auctioneer only offers their services to get the bids and have no input to the product description, e.g. the auctioneer goes to a farm to run a clearance sale and has no previous sight or knowledge of the goods. In this case, if the seller is familiar with the goods and is the manufacturer, importer or previous owner etc. they are considered to have greater responsibility for meeting the duties than the auctioneer.
This would also apply when the auctioneer is called on at short notice or when the auctioneer is supplied with information by the seller they can reasonably believe to be correct.
Where the seller is without practical experience of the goods to be sold, the seller and the auctioneer must agree what needs to be done to satisfy section 6 of HSWA, and who will arrange this. This might mean calling a competent person to establish that the machine is safe, or contacting the manufacturer for a manual.
Catalogue auction
At Catalogue Auctions the auctioneer is considered to bear responsibility due to their knowledge of the products, having examined, valued and catalogued them. In this case the auctioneer would be responsible as well as the owner seller. If the auctioneer is taking on the role of executor then they may take on the responsibilities of the seller.
It is most likely that an auctioneer’s duty will vary for each item that comes up for sale. However, what must be clearly understood by the seller is the fact that selling goods by auction does not free them from their responsibilities.
