The implications of both criminal and case law with regard to the use of contractors’ places significant obligations on employers, To avoid the pit-falls in the use of contractors, it is imperative that robust systems to select and manage these organisations are implemented. Selecting a contractor for whatever purpose should initially entail on exercise of due diligence to be carried out, to ensure that the organisation concerned is not only commercially viable, but is also carrying out its legal responsibilities with regard to health and safety.

It is also necessary to ensure that any contractor working on your site has received some basic health and safety training or refresher within agreed timescales. Leading Organisations are now insisting that their contractors 3oin and maintain membership of various contractor passport schemes. Membership of such schemes such as the Safety Pass Alliance provides assurance for employers that their contractors have indeed undertaken appropriate health and safety training. When arriving at your site, only basic induction and job specific health and safety instructions are necessary, reducing both the administration and training effort required.

Once a contractor is approved, a list of such companies can be made available for the organisation to use, controlled internally. Continued approval would be subject to annual review and audit if necessary. Random audits of compliance by contractors will be carried out by SAS. Specific audits of contractors’ organisations can be carried out by arrangement.

Due Diligence

Abacus Safety Services can provide competent safety professionals to ensure that the due diligence exercise carried out for your contractors are both quantitative and qualitative. This should apply both to contracted-out work as much as it does to work done on the employer’s own site. The exercise must be supported by the appropriate documentation should the employers duty when employing competent contractors be challenged by a third party. The exercise carried out will review the main aspects of their management system and includes but is not limited to:

• Safety Policy
• Organisational arrangements
• Risk Assessments, method statements and safe systems of work
• Identity and qualifications of their safety adviser
• Health and safety training records for employees involved
• Accident performance up to and including the last 5 years.

The degree of due diligence carried out should be commensurate with the risk involved. Organisations supplying expertise in high—risk activities for example may require both internal audit and recommendations from other organisations using their services.

Health & Safety Training

All contractors are obliged by law to train their employees in appropriate health and safety matters. Unfortunately, the training given is either insufficient or inappropriate. As a result, many organisations throughout the UK now require all contractors working on their premises to hold a Safety Passport, a process that allows an organisation to rest assured that their contractors have been trained to a nationally recognised level.

Abacus Safety Services can provide the necessary training, either in house or at a suitable venue and facilitate the issue of Safety Passports. So widely accepted is the training, some organisations have implemented the training for their own full-time employees too.

At the heart of the Safety Passport Scheme is the Core day, which provides training in seven key areas, to a level which all participants will understand. Understanding is assessed by multiple-choice questions and achievement is rewarded by the issue of a credit cord sized Safety Passport. 

The Core Day covers:

• introduction to health and safety, environment, safe systems of work, etc
• workplace access, egress, emergencies, vehicles, equipment, machinery
• fire precautions and procedures
• accidents — prevention and reporting
• first aid 
• hazardous substances – COSHH
• noise at work

Sector Specific Training

Associated with the core day are sector specific additional training modules, tailored to different work sectors. These additional modules enhance the awareness of workers to their own related industries and are often insisted upon by organisations implementing the Safety Passport Scheme.

Benefits of Safety Passport Training

• recognised and validated standard
• acknowledged by the F-ISE
• cost effective
• increased safety awareness contributing to higher standards of safety performance