I spoke with a newsagent today and he confirmed that although he employed 6 paper people and 5 staff within his shop he did not have a safety policy and he did not think it applied to hium.

Also, he did not do any form of risk assessment, fire risk assessmnet of general safety assessment of the work place or the taks involved.

He agreed with me that the paper people (I love this PC stuff) where at risk in because of the dark but also addedd that they way the papers are packed involve them crossing the road often.

Some simple conrtrol measures have made it a lot safer for his delivery staff.

Firstly, he has informed them all that they must have helmets and lights on their bikes.

Secondly, he has purchased them high viz vest at £2 each.

Thirdly, he now packs the bags so that road crossings are limited.

As a certain Merecat would say "Simples !"
 

i was on my way to a meeting recently in the early hours and a young chap delivering papers cycled out in front of me. No lights on the bike, no high viz vest no helmet. If that were my son I would be horrified. Newsagents please please remember that "paper people" are your responsibility, you have a duty of care to ensure that they are safe at work. Simple measures such as lights, high viz jackets and helmets are simple measures that you should insist that your employees have them to hand.

Check this out

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=safety&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

it shows that in 1820 0.007% od published books included to word safety as opposed to 0.0055% as of 2000 !

Just goes to show that occupational safety has been around a while !

I met with  client earlier in the week and went through his Site Safety pack, (Safety Policy, risk assessments, method statements etc) and when we discussed his client something didn't feel right, I expressed  my concerns about the potential client and their intentions re payment.

I have just had a call from him and based on my comments he has had another look at his client and their financial stability.  He has decided that the risk of this contract and the potential of not being paid is too great as it could bankrupt him.

Because we know our clients, how their business works and the individuals in them we may have literally saved his company, how about that for a risk assessment !

A new document has been created that is available by e-mail if you would like a copy please request it from Jerome, jerome@c2safety.co.uk or Linda, linda@c2safety.co.uk

It details that we provide cost effective safety advice in a professional but approachable manner.

Take care

Jerome

All the fun of the fair, in the process of sorting three CHAS forms for three different customers, no problem at all apart from the random choice of assessors from CHAS.

Lets hope at l;east one goes to one of the few sensible assessor rather than the insane ones that seem to derive pleasure in failiung fims and then making them jump through hoops.

I will keep you upated with the CHAS applications as the pass through the system.

Jerome 

I have had two incidents recently with CPCS (construction plant competence scheme) ticketed excavator operators clearly not being competent.

The first one saw the machine driver hit an overhead power cable, during the accident investigation he turned around and said "I didn't think it would be a major problem".

The second saw the driver track up a incline diagonally resulting in the machine tipping over. Again there was n concept of the potential risk.

Although I don't disagree with the concept of a scheme to ensure operators competence I do believe the operators need to more thoroughly examined and also asked to confirm that they believe that they are competent. I am often surprised when I speak to people about their legal duty to look after themselves and others and then question them on what machines they are competent to operate that they are very frank and honest about what they can safely manage.

I recently attended a Somerset customer of ours who was hosting an open day and wanted some advice on an obstacle course they were planning for the visitors.

So clipboad in hand off I head, only to find out when I got there that the obstacle course was for a forward tipping dumper. Luckily I had been trained recently on the safe operation of a dumper but I struggled to make the tight turns required and ended up stuck.

It goes to show that although I had been trained and risk assessments were in place they didn't make up for my natural competence, or in my case incompetence !