08.24.09
HSE Imposes Extra Obligations on the Asbestos Survey Duty Holders
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will introduce revised guidance for asbestos surveys in the coming autumn. These new guidelines will cover survey, sampling and assessment of materials that contain asbestos.
The revised guidelines will impose many duties on the relevant parties. They will first affect the asbestos surveyors and those who have the responsibility of protecting others from exposure to asbestos. These people who have the duty of planning and carrying out asbestos surveys are called duty holders. They have to collect and provide data regarding the building which has to be inspected, the purpose for which the building is being used and the existing dangers of asbestos in the building.
They have to also ensure that the survey is carried out by qualified surveyors. Thus, to ensure quality standards they should ask the surveyors for the survey plan, insurance policy and work reference. COSHH assessor training can be of benefit to organisations to enable them to put together plans to prevent and control the use of hazardous substances so that businesses and employees can work safely - click on COSHH training.
The duty holders are also directed to meet the surveyor at the work site before the survey starts. They must check the correctness of the survey results see if the sampling was sufficient and everything that was required to be surveyed has been surveyed.
The new guidelines are a major step forward according to asbestos specialist Angela Taylor who is also a partner at Shoosmiths. She said duty holders will now have extra obligations of checking the qualifications of the surveyor, the correctness of the survey report etc. This will also make sure that the surveyor does the work properly. She noted that the surveyor would not get away with doing low quality work, even if he is charging less as his results will be cross-checked.
