3 minute read
Chief Executive’s comment
Steve Sadley, Chief Executive
On the 21st of April 2022 the Government published its response to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Sub Committee inquiry into the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) approach to asbestos management. Through its ATaC Division the Association has played a large part in the inquiry, submitting both written evidence and attending formal meetings of the DWP Sub Committee to provide oral evidence as part of the inquiry. As far as the Association were concerned, we were disappointed by the Government response. All recommendations made by the Select Committee were either rejected or subject to further consideration, with none of the recommendations being accepted at this point. We were particularly disappointed that despite HSE currently strongly recommending the use of survey organisations which are UKAS accredited, they have not accepted the recommendation proposed by the Select Committee that HSE makes it mandatory for all people conducting asbestos surveys to be accredited by a recognised accreditation body. With regards to this, HSE have said that “Recognising the evidence presented in the inquiry in this area, HSE will now engage with stakeholders to consider this further and how we can collectively ensure that competence is enabled throughout the system”. As a leading stakeholder in
Association continues to develop tools and services to support members
this area, we look forward to engaging with the HSE to achieve this. A report on the Government response is included in this edition of ARCA News on pages 11 to 15.
In the Government’s response to the inquiry, it was stated that “The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provided evidence to the committee that the correct implementation of CAR not only ensures management of risks of exposure…”. Based on their experience, ATaC members, suggest that asbestos is not managed in the UK to the extent that the HSE believe. A number of UKAS accredited laboratories have pooled their survey data from a 6-month period in order to interrogate the data and give an indication of how well asbestos is actually managed by Duty Holders in the UK. The data set they have built contains over one million lines of data and they hope to publish a report on their findings later this year. Further information on this project is available on page 8.
I am delighted that we were able to announce further developments to the Asbestos Labour Feedback App (ALFA) early September. These developments constitute phase 1 of a major update to the system. For both the Agency and LARC Employees systems ratings have changed from a 6-star rating system to a 4-star rating system, and a more detailed description of what is being assessed for each rating category is provided (ref page 5). Also, in the LARC Employees system, an action is automatically raised when a category is rated less than generally satisfactory. This action can be allocated to anyone in the business to address and close out. A record of the action is placed on the operative’s overview record (ref page 6). Phase 2 of this major update is to introduce into the LARC Employees system the capability to rate the performance of supervisors and contract managers, and this will be happening before year end.
Our Site Audit Accreditation Scheme remains the most robust and comprehensive site auditing system available to the asbestos removal industry. We are delighted that the technology and development investment can be shared with our members to complete their own internal audits. Nearly 30% of our members now use the internal audit app to complete their internal audits. In addition, many members are scheduling additional audits to be carried out by ARCA to complement their audit strategy. Members have commented to me that having additional ARCA audits has been the single biggest impact in improving their company performance. The system will be further enhanced when the Site Audit Portal comes online very soon. This will give an analysis of the Site Audits in terms of ‘planning’, ’doing’ and ‘checking’, and generate actions to be closed out. This will provide a one stop shop for internal audits, ARCA programmed Site Audit Accreditation Audits, Additional audits, and analysis of those audits.
Work on these major developments should soon be completed. There is more to come!
We are working on bringing you a new ARCA and ATaC website, together with a new member portal, with greater functionality and features than ever before. By the end of the year.
There are two further digital projects which are in the early development stages, which we will be unveiling to members, all being well, at the member regional meetings in November.
