In recent years, rightly or wrongly, health and safety has become one of the main driving factors that governs when, how and who should undertaken any kind of construction or building works.  We’ve all seen examples of instances where a young person fresh out of college can start work on site straight away, but an older more experienced and competent worker is stopped from working on the site because they don’t have the right training ticket or card!  Health and Safety really can be an arse!

So in the days of the construction and building industries being controlled and driven by the requirement to comply with health and safety legislation and the associated red tape, then it is clearly necessary to make sure you have everything in place to help protect yourself, your employees, other persons and your actual trading company.   Managing the safety of workers and members of the public can therefore be particularly challenging.  Even when you feel you have everything in place and your health and safety policy, RAMS and staff training are all seemingly up to date and in accordance with HSE standards, then there will always be something else.

So the question has to be asked, are you happy you have everything covered, is everything up to date and in accordance with the current versions of the HSE’s Regulations?  For most builders, contractors and tradesmen the simple answer is that they simply do not know! And why would you, its not your area of expertise, you are not a Health and Safety Professional.

So, this is why the HSE introduced a very specific health and safety law/regulation that states it’s a legal requirement for every company (and this includes sole traders/self employed persons) in the UK, to appoint one or more competent persons to provide health and safety advice and support to help them manage their health and safety responsibilities.  This could include the preparation of risk assessments and method statements, to providing general safety advice and support on safe working practices, to providing guidance on the provision of safety training.

This law is detailed in ‘Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999‘ the full details of which can be found by clicking here.

You may be relieved to know that this competent person doesn’t have to be a direct employee of the company, in fact for most companies, particularly sole traders and small/medium sized organisations, one of the most cost-effective and efficient options is to engage (outsource) the services of an external Health and Safety Consultant, such as ourselves (Your Safety Advisor Ltd).

Now in order to fulfill there duties to you, the Health and Safety Consultant needs to be a qualified and experienced health and safety professional with direct knowledge and experience of your industry.  As a building contractor or electrician, there is no point in engaging a former local authority safety advisor who has only ever worked in an office environment.  You need a professional that specialises in your sector.  This is where Your Safety Advisor Ltd excels, we are Construction Safety Specialists.  In fact our Principal Safety Advisor is a fully qualified Chartered Civil Engineer and has many years experience of working in both design offices and on construction sites, he has an intimate understanding of the construction industry and is well regarded as a specialist Construction Safety Advisor, having even been employed by the Isle of Man Government as their specialist Construction Safety Advisor.

For more information about Your Safety Advisor Ltd, please click here to jump to our About us Page, or alternatively, click here to view our Meet the Team Page.

Why You Should Consider Outsourcing Health and Safety

With the support of a competent health and safety consultant, such as Your Safety Advisor Ltd, you will be able to demonstrate your compliance with Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, by having a competent person in place to assist you with the management of health and safety.

This will help to prove that you take health and safety seriously and in turn it will help you to pre-qualify for tender lists and contracts which you may have previously been excluded from.

Outsourcing your Health and Safety provision is also significantly more cost-effective than hiring a full-time or even part-time employee, plus you do not to worry about the associated on-costs of employing people in this day and age.  In fact our annual costs to act as your safety advisor could be far less than you think, in fact it costs less than £1 a day.  Click here to find out more about our retained Health and Safety Advisor Service.

Retained Health and Safety Advisor Service