In practice the changes are fairly limited. They mean that some types of non-licensed work with asbestos now have additional requirements, i.e. notification of work, medical surveillance and record keeping. All other requirements remain unchanged.

What has stayed the same?

• If existing asbestos containing materials are in good condition and are not likely to be damaged, they may be left in place; their condition monitored and managed to ensure they are not disturbed.
• If you’re responsible for maintenance of non-domestic premises, you have a ‘duty to manage’ the asbestos in them, to protect anyone using or working in the premises from the risks to health that exposure to asbestos causes.
• If you want to do any building or maintenance work in premises, or on plant or equipment that might contain asbestos, you need to identify where it is and its type and condition; assess the risks, and manage and control these risks.
• The requirements for licensed work remain the same: in the majority of cases, work with asbestos needs to be done by a licensed contractor. This work includes most asbestos removal, all work with sprayed asbestos coatings and asbestos lagging and most work with asbestos insulation and asbestos insulating board (AIB).
• If you are carrying out non-licensed asbestos work, this still requires effective controls.
• The control limit for asbestos is 0.1 asbestos fibres per cubic centimetre of air (0.1 f/cm3). The control limit is not a ‘safe’ level and exposure from work activities involving asbestos must be reduced to as far below the control limit as possible.
• Training is mandatory for anyone liable to be exposed to asbestos fibres at work. This includes maintenance workers and others who may come into contact with or disturb asbestos (e.g. cable installers), as well as those involved in asbestos removal work.

What has changed?

• From 6 April 2012, some non-licensed work needs to be notified to the relevant enforcing authority.
• From 6 April 2012, brief written records should be kept of non-licensed work, which has to be notified e.g. copy of the notification with a list of workers on the job, plus the level of likely exposure of those workers to asbestos. This does not require air monitoring on every job, if an estimate of degree of exposure can be made based on experience of similar past tasks or published guidance.
• By April 2015, all workers/self employed doing notifiable non-licensed work with asbestos must be under health surveillance by a Doctor. Workers who are already under health surveillance for licensed work need not have another medical examination for non-licensed work. BUT medicals for notifiable non-licensed work are not acceptable for those doing licensed work.
• Some modernisation of language and changes to reflect other legislation, e.g. the prohibition section has been removed, as the prohibition of supply and use of asbestos is now covered by REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals Regulations 2006).

Increased maintenance and fabrication activities, which are required to deal with the aging offshore infrastructure, have resulted in a greater potential for exposure to asbestos. There have been several incidents where asbestos has been poorly managed and subsequently disturbed. This has lead to exposure to asbestos fibres, costly and disruptive clean-ups and in several cases formal enforcement action by HSE.

This picture shows what happened when a duty holder failed to identify ACMs under a freezer floor before ripping it up. The white material is a product known as Caposil, containing up to 25% amosite (brown) asbestos, and it was removed without any control measures. Airborne asbestos fibre levels are likely to have been very high with contamination spread around surrounding areas.

Other examples include:

• Compressed asbestos fibre (CAF) gaskets not being identified before work began and subsequently removed without any precautions
• Maintenance work on external paneling, which turned out to contain asbestos
• Cutting penetrations through accommodation walls, which turned out to contain asbestos
• Widening a freezer door. The walls were metallic but because an intrusive (Refurbishment and Demolition) survey was not carried out the internal asbestos insulating board was not identified before the wall was cut with a power saw

Source: HSE

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Avon Freight Group Ltd (AFG) and its managing director Simon Poole, together with builder Ronald McPhee, over the exposure during work to convert the unit in Hemming Road, Redditch, into a new storage centre and headquarters for AFG.

AFG’s architect commissioned a survey that identified asbestos insulation board in a number of partition walls, which the company wanted to demolish, and obtained estimates for its removal from three licensed contractors.

However, Worcester Crown Court heard Simon Poole instructed builder Ronald MacPhee, who was carrying out minor refurbishment work on the premises, to carry out the work even though he did not have a licence.

Mr MacPhee and two other workers removed almost 1.5 tonnes of asbestos insulation board from the site and disposed of it as asbestos cement, which can be removed without a licence, some time between 24 April and 16 May 2008.

Five months later, two other companies, who had been commissioned to demolish parts of the building and build an extension, discovered pieces of asbestos insulation board on the floor and still attached to retaining screws on the walls and alerted HSE.

Analysis of the area revealed that it was contaminated with asbestos fibres and required decontamination by a specialist licensed asbestos contractor.

HSE’s investigation into the incident found that at least 20 people – including contract workers on the project, employees of AFG and workers for a tenant who had been using the site for storage, could have inhaled asbestos fibres during the five months.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Tariq Khan said:

“As a result of the appalling failings of the company and two individuals concerned, at least 20 people now have to live with the knowledge they have been exposed to asbestos.  This type of exposure could cause life-threatening illnesses in years to come but because it takes so long to develop, these people will be left with years of uncertainty.

“AFG and Simon Poole knew that asbestos insulation board was present in the walls and presumably knew they should get an appropriately qualified person to dispose of it, having received estimates from three properly licensed contractors.  Regardless of safety, they instructed Ronald MacPhee to remove it.

“Mr MacPhee should never have carried out the work, and his partial removal of the asbestos insulation board left the site in an even less safe state than before, as it was contaminated with fibres.

“Only licensed contractors are allowed to remove asbestos insulating board. If we find evidence of anyone who does not have a licence working with asbestos, we will not hesitate to bring enforcement action.

“It is no excuse to claim ignorance of the law, especially as there is a wealth of advice and information available from HSE free of charge.”

Avon Freight Group Ltd, of Hemming Road, Redditch, pleaded guilty today to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £26,147 costs.

Simon Poole, of Streetly Lane, Sutton Coldfield, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £26,147 costs.

Ronald MacPhee, of West Avenue, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £500 costs.

Asbestos is the biggest cause of occupational deaths in the UK, with an estimated 4,000 people dying every year from related diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Information on working safely with asbestos is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/hiddenkiller/index.htm and www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos

For more information visit HSE

Richard Hayward of Cardiff Bay was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) over failings at the former Rhondda Pressing building, located on the Penygraig Industrial Estate.

Mr Hayward, trading as Richard Hayward Properties, managed the property on behalf of a company called Guinevere Holdings Limited.

Pontypridd Magistrates’ Court heard that Mr Hayward had let out part of the building in 2007 but it was only in 2008, when a request to provide an asbestos survey for insurance purposes was made, that the presence of asbestos insulating board (AIB) roof tiles and brown and blue asbestos was identified in the premises.

A subsequent HSE investigation confirmed there was a risk of exposure to asbestos due to the poor condition the asbestos was found in.

The court was told that between 2005 and 2008, three companies occupied the building. During this time, structural work to install a partition wall was completed and contractors were hired to carry out electrical works at the site.

In addition to those undertaking the work, any person in the vicinity, including tenants, were at risk of exposure to asbestos.

The HSE investigation found Mr Hayward did not take steps to discover whether asbestos was present or liable to be present and he failed to effectively identify and manage the risks arising from asbestos containing materials at the building.

Mr Hayward, of Adventurers’ Quay, Cardiff Bay, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay costs of £20,000.

HSE inspector Lee Schilling said:

“The dangers of asbestos are well known in the property management industry.

“Mr Hayward could have prevented the risk of exposing persons to asbestos if he had simply considered whether or not asbestos was present when he first took over control of the building and, having confirmed its presence, passed on relevant information to those who were liable to disturb it.

“For Mr Hayward not to inform relevant persons that asbestos was present demonstrated a major failing in his management procedures at that time.

“This prosecution highlights the importance of taking simple, practical steps to protect maintenance workers and others from the risk of exposure to asbestos.”

For more information visit: HSE

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told Chippenham Magistrates’ Court that D B Construction (West Wilts) Ltd carried out unsafe work while refurbishing a house in Bradford-on-Avon between 29 November and 10 December 2010.

An AIB ceiling was removed in an uncontrolled manner, which put employees, subcontractors and the homeowners and their young children at risk of asbestos exposure.

The court heard an electrician on site raised concerns the ceiling boards being removed from could contain asbestos and he arranged for the material to be analysed before beginning work.

An analyst visited the site and advised work should cease until the contaminated area had been cleaned of asbestos debris. HSE later confirmed the ceiling boards contained both white and the more hazardous brown asbestos.

HSE found that DB Construction had failed to investigate whether asbestos was present in the building before work started and when removing the ceiling boards its employees and sub contractors failed to identify the material and broke up the boards releasing airborne asbestos fibres. The boards and debris were then removed in open bags and left in the garden in a breach of safety rules.

HSE inspector, Helena Tinton said after the prosecution:

“Asbestos widely known to be a hazardous material and asbestos fibre exposure is linked to a number of serious diseases, including cancer and scarring of the lungs. As such, work with materials containing higher risk asbestos, including asbestos insulation board, is a licensed activity with work only carried out by trained people under tightly controlled conditions.

“As a building contractor engaged in refurbishment work, D B Construction should have been aware of this and yet these ceiling boards were removed in an uncontrolled manner over a period of several hours, which resulted in the spread of airborne asbestos fibres inside and outside the property, leaving workers and the family at risk of exposure.”

D B Construction (West Wilts) Ltd, of Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 5 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 and was fined £7,000 with £3,617.50 in costs.

For more information visit HSE

Ipswich Magistrates’ Court heard the council faced six charges resulting from Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigations into incidents at Burton End Primary School in Haverhill, Farlingaye High School in Woodbridge, and the council’s highways department.

One charge related to an incident on 11 October 2009, when a nine-year-old Jamie Griffin  pupil at Burton End Primary School, was playing on a climbing frame in the school grounds when he fell over 1.5 metres onto concrete slabs below. He fractured his skull, suffered a bleed into his brain and was temporarily blinded.  It was 10 weeks before he returned to full-time schooling.

The HSE investigation found Suffolk County Council had ignored a requirement to provide an impact absorbing surface under the climbing frame and it had not provided the school with enough information to ensure pupils could play on the climbing frame safely.

Two other charges followed an investigation into an IT technician’s fall while he was taking down a screen at the back of a stage after a Farlingaye High School theatre production on 21 October 2009. 

Paul Rudland, 28, from Stowmarket, shattered his arm when he fell about 4m from a temporary aluminium platform, called a tallescope, which was being pushed along while he was on the top of it.  He needed a steel plate and nine metal pins inserted into the shattered bone and was off work for five months because of his injuries.

HSE’s investigation found that the council had not provided adequate training to its employees and had failed to monitor working at height in schools.

Three further breaches relate to the management of Suffolk council’s highways department, which employs around 120 road workers. These employees had been working with vibrating machinery over several years and four had developed the debilitating hand arm vibration syndrome.

The council admitted failing to properly assess the risk from working with the equipment and exposing its workers to harm.

The council was fined a total of £48,000 and ordered to pay costs totalling £43,772.

After the hearing the HSE Inspectors who brought the prosecution, Julie Rayner said:

“It is very disappointing to see a major employer like the county council repeatedly fall short of its legal obligations to protect its workers and pupils.

“These cases show the need for all organisations to ensure that they understand the risks in their business and take sufficient steps to manage and monitor them. 

“HSE will not hesitate to take action against any organisation, big or small, where it finds breaches of the law ”

Source: HSE

Allan Dyson and Asbestos in Schools

Allan Dyson Asbestos specialise in Asbestos Consultancy, Services and Removals for Academies in Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Essex, Manchester and throughout the UK.

If you have any questions regarding our Asbestos Consultancy, Services and Removals for Academies please contact us.

Allan Dyson and Asbestos in Schools

In this edition we look at how HSE has been working with industry on the asbestos training pledge.

And with this training that is on offer, little changes in your working habit and your behaviour that will only take two or three hours of the day to complete now are going to have a huge impact on your life and the life of your family, to make sure that you’re not exposed to asbestos.

But first, here’s a round up of other health and safety news.

New figures show the number of people injured and made unwell at work has fallen, continuing the trend and confiming that Britain has the lowest rates in Europe. Between April 2010 and March 2011, 24,726 major injuries such as amputations, fractures and burns were reported, compared with 26,268 in 2009/10.

An estimated 1.2 million people said they were suffering from an illness caused or made worse by their work, down from 1.3 million the previous year. Provisional fatality figures for 2010/11 were released in June. 171 workers were fatally injured – up from 147 the previous year. Construction and agriculture continue to report the highest levels of work-related injuries, with disproportionately high numbers of incidents. For more information on the latest statistics visit www.hse.gov.uk/statistics

Marks and Spencer plc has been fined one million pounds for putting members of the public, staff and construction workers at risk of exposure to asbestos-containing materials during the refurbishment of a store in Reading. During the three-month trial, the court heard that Marks and Spencer did not allocate sufficient time and space within the store to carry out the work safely.

Three of its contractors also received fines ranging from two hundred pounds to a hundred thousand pounds, relating to work at the Reading store and to another in Bournemouth.

HSE is challenging the construction industry to learn from the 2012 Olympic construction project and improve the safety record of one of the most dangerous occupations in Britain. In the first of a series of research reports that HSE will publish as part of the 2012 learning legacy, strong leadership and worker involvement were cited as crucial in creating a safe working environment for the thousands of workers on site. Only 114 injuries have occurred during 66 million hours of work on the site so far. To see the report go to hse.gov.uk, search for ‘London 2012′ and then click on ‘lessons for industry’

Thousands of joiners, electricians and plumbers have been finding out all about asbestos. The courses have been delivered for free by the training industry and in a moment we’ll be talking to one of the trainers and some of the people who attended a course in Chesterfield. But first we speak to HSE’s Charlotte Dunstan. She’s the manager of the Training Pledge Initiative under which the courses were run. I started by asking her how it came about in the first place.

This training pledge initiative is part of the Hidden Killer campaign. The Hidden Killer campaign is about raising awareness of the dangers of exposure to asbestos and has been running since 2008.

So the campaign’s been running for a few years already but this is something new, isn’t it? You’re actually now working with the industry to train people?

That’s right. I mean now that we know that at risk workers’ attitudes towards asbestos have changed we now want to bring about a change in their behaviour. We want to make it so that their working habits are safer and they are protecting themselves as they go about their daily tasks. So we came up with this initiative working with industry to try and deliver free training to those that need it most.

You talk about the number of people you were targeting, how many people you’re trying to get involved, I mean, I understand you had a target of four thousand and there was a very good reason why four thousand was chosen?

Yeah, we had a target of four thousand hours and that was to reflect the approximate number of people that die from asbestos-related diseases on an annual basis which, if you can believe it, is over four thousand. That’s more people than die on the roads each year. We had that target and we actually exceeded it so much that we doubled it. We had a separate target for online training and another target for classroom-based training, trying to get four thousand hours for each of those varieties.

So you must have been pleasantly surprised when the figures came in to show that actually you managed to beat your own target?

Well we did, and we beat those targets considerably as well. We actually ended up getting over fifteen thousand hours of free training being pledged.

And people were taking taking that up? I mean, people were keen to get this? I mean obviously, we often think that tradespeople, particularly plumbers, electricians, they’re often busy, they’ve got to earn a living, people were making time to attend the courses or to dial up the website and get the training they needed?

Yes, they were Phil, because I think people know from the previous advertising that HSE’s done and because of understanding of asbestos out there in the industry that it is a real risk for them.

Getting together this amount of training must have been a bit of a tall order. When you first approached industry, what kind of response did you get from them?

The response was overwhelming from the beginning. We went out and had a chat with industry and the major bodies that represent training providers for classroom-based training are called IATP which is the Independent Asbestos Training Providers and UKATA who are the United Kingdom Asbestos Training Association. Both those bodies wholeheartedly accepted the initiative and wanted to be part of it.

So the training is actually being delivered by the people who do this day in, day out. It’s the real stuff?

It is the real stuff indeed and I have to say that the independent training providers who only found out about the initiative once it had gone live have also pledged in huge numbers.

Well, I’m here now with John Garrity who’s running today’s training course. John, could I start by asking you why Broadland thought it was important to support the pledge initiative?

Well, we thought it was an excellent idea from HSE to raise the awareness amongst the tradespeople even more and there’s a lot of people out there, particularly on the SME side, companies who maybe don’t get access to this training and from past experience of doing work with tradespeople they don’t really appreciate what they need, what information they need and also how to interpret that information so I think it’s essential and I hope they’re going to do it again in the future.

And what sort of issues are people bringing up to you when they come on these courses?

Well, a lot of it’s down to, sort of, historical exposure issues, they’re concerned about their history in the past and things like that, or want to work to hopefully reduce exposure for the future because they weren’t aware of the information that was potentially available to them, they weren’t necessarily doing a full and thorough risk assessment.

My name’s Martin Carruthers, I’m Construction Director for a company called Swainpark Properties Ltd.

And how did you find out about the training course today?

It was the HSE eBulletin that informed us that this was available, free of charge.

And how much did you know about the dangers before coming on today’s course?

Well, with being in the industry all my working life you’ve always been made aware of the asbestos being in place in buildings, so we’ve always been very proactive on asbestos, employing companies to carry out site surveys and if it is present in a building the right removal certificates are gained through a company that we work with before anybody enters. And we always have site talks to make anybody aware of anything that they’re carrying out. If they have any suspicions then it’s to make it known straight away and we have the company come in to analyse it and tell us what direction to take with it.

My name is Andy Tunnicliffe and I work for a company called The Bandit Company as the Facilities Manager.

So what sort of things have you learned so far?

It’s very interesting to understand the facts and figures relating to the deaths and the exposure rates, that kind of information. The key elements that I think’ll come from the rest of the course are the materials and the level of content and obviously the risks that’s involved with that.

And do you personally know anybody who’s got ill after working with asbestos?

Yes, one of my mother’s friends, he actually passed away about five years ago after contracting asbestosis. He used to be a builder and he picked it up from that. I think it’s very important that people do attend a course such as this because at the end of the day if you are not made aware of those key elements then obviously you can’t take the actions and put the correct procedures in place.

Charlotte Dunstan from HSE again.

Asbestos awareness training is theoretical. It’s laying out what the properties of asbestos are, what the effects are on your health, where you might come across it in a building, what asbestos-containing materials there are out there and what procedures you should follow in an emergency and how you can avoid the risks.

So this is really a chance to kind of give people the warning signs so they need to know almost that this is something they can’t handle on their own?

That’s right, and then once they’ve identified that it’s something that they might come into contact with they would need to get a further class of training which is called “non-licensed training” and this is more practical and it would tell them how to work on the specific materials that they know they work with.

Why is asbestos still a problem today? I mean, people traditionally think of asbestos as a building material that’s not used any more. It’s very much a thing of the past.

It’s not a building material anymore and it has been banned in the UK since before the year 2000. However because of the legacy of its usage it’s still in nearly half a million commercial buildings and tradespeople are still disturbing the fabric of those buildings on a daily basis and potentially getting exposed to asbestos fibres.

Looking at the figures here, it’s almost eight thousand hours of classroom training and over five and a half thousand web-based e-learning hours that have been delivered now. I mean, it’s fair to say that this training, you’re hoping it’s going to make a big difference, aren’t you?

I know, those numbers are incredible, aren’t they? The generosity of the training providers has really surprised us all. And with this training that is on offer, little changes in your working habit and your behaviour that will only take two or three hours of the day to complete now are going to have a huge impact on your life and the life of your family, to make sure that you’re not exposed to asbestos.

Charlotte Dunstan, manager of the Training Pledge Initiative at the Health and Safety Executive.

You can find a transcript of this podcast at hse.gov.uk/podcasts

And if you’ve anything to say on the subject of asbestos awareness then let us know at hse.gov.uk/podcasts or click on the link at the bottom of any HSE web page.

The failings came to light on 24 February 2010 when a lecturer became trapped in a room after a door lock broke. She enlisted the help of a colleague to release her and once freed, they noticed debris around the door handle.

They notified the university’s health and safety department which examined the door and others in the area, and discovered most were lined with asbestos insulating board (AIB), and that some were damaged.

The university notified the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which carried out its own investigation. It was found that a number of areas across the university’s estate had been subject to asbestos surveys over a number of years and many areas were found to contain asbestos-containing materials or even asbestos debris, yet no remedial action had been taken.

Lincoln University Higher Education Corporation, of Brayford Pool, Lincoln, pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court today. The university was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £12,759 costs.

After the hearing at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court HSE inspector Edward Walker said:

“Exposure to asbestos fibres is a well known health hazard that results in approximately 4,000 deaths a year.

“The university had an asbestos management plan but had failed to follow it and failed to take appropriate steps to manage the risks associated with asbestos over a number of years, putting staff, students and contractors at risk of potential exposure.”

Source: http://www.hse.gov.uk

Allan Dyson and Asbestos in Schools