Bichlorides

The Bradford Magistrates’ Court has fined health and safety consultant Richard Atterby £1,000 and asked him to pay costs of £700, after he pleaded guilty under Section 36(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The consultant was charged after he made a wrong judgment, when he failed to report that it was unsafe for the staff to be exposed to respirable crystalline silica, arising from sandstone processing in a quarry.

George Farrar (Quarries) Ltd. had hired Richard Atterby as a consultant to provide health and safety services to the company over three years ago. His task was to review whether the workplace was safe for the employees and to report any unsafe substances present in the quarry that may cause health problems.

However, when the HSE did a site examination, they found the harmful substance and brought it to the attention of the court. The court held Mr. Atterby liable for failing to ensure worker safety and reprimanded the employer for negligence.

In light of this incident, HSE has asked all companies to be very cautious when taking on health and safety consultants. HSE Principal Inspector, Keith King, explained that all companies should be careful about how much they rely on their advisor. He asked the employers to outsource such a critical part of their work only when absolutely necessary, and warned them that just by offloading the work they are not relieved of their responsibility to provide a safe working environment to their employees. Making sure staff and managers have appropriate training is also an effective way of reducing the risk of accidents in the workplace and improving a company’s health and safety culture, click here for more info on the iosh managing safely certificate course.

Mr King also asked the companies to make sure that whoever they select to outsource this work to is proficient and has adequate data and know-how on the subject, in order to conclude correctly about safety.

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