Why should you outsource your Health and Safety?

Every company is legally obliged to have access to 'Competent H&S Advice and Support' it's not optional. In a hazardous construction environment this is even more important. It's clearly not economically viable for most small/medium sized businesses to directly employ their own Safety Advisor, the alternative is to outsource your H&S to a competent H&S Consultant such as Your Safety Advisor Ltd.

In recent years, rightly or wrongly, health and safety has become one of the main driving factors that governs when, how and who should undertaken any kind of construction or building works. We’ve all seen examples of instances where a young person, fresh out of college, can start work on site straight away, but an older, more experienced and competent worker is stopped from working on the site because they don’t have the right training ticket or card! Health and Safety really can be an arse!

In todays environment where the construction and building industries are being controlled and driven by the requirement to comply with health and safety legislation, it is clearly necessary that in order to secure contracts, every contractor needs to make sure they have everything in place. This is not only to help protect yourself and your company, but also your employees, other contractors/persons and members of the public.

Managing the safety of workers and members of the public can be particularly challenging. Even when you feel you have everything in place and your Health and Safety Policy, RAMS and staff training are all seemingly up to date and in accordance with HSE standards, then there will always be something else......

So the question has to be asked, are you sure that you have everything properly covered?

Is everything up to date and in accordance with the current versions of the HSE’s Regulations?

For most builders, contractors and tradesmen the simple answer is that they simply do not know! And why would they, its not their area of expertise, they are not Health and Safety Professionals.

This is nothing to be ashamed of and using a Health and Safety Consultant to help manage your Health and Safety Responsibilities is no different to using an Accountant to manage your Tax affairs. In fact it makes perfect sense!

You wouldn't use a Gas Engineer to sign off Electrical Works, or a Drainage Contractor to reroof a house.

CDM requires Contractors to ensure that those they engage have the necessary Skills, Knowledge and Experience. This extends to all persons and trades and also includes those managing your Health and Safety and producing your H&S Documentation etc.

Furthermore, the HSE introduced a specific health and safety law/regulation that states it’s a legal requirement for every company (and this includes sole traders/self employed persons) in the UK, to appoint one or more Competent Persons to provide health and safety advice and support, to help them manage their health and safety responsibilities.

This could include the preparation of Risk Assessments and Method Statements (RAMS), to the provision of general safety advice and support on safe working practices, to providing guidance on the provision of safety training.

This law is detailed in ‘Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999‘.

This Competent Person doesn’t have to be a direct employee of the company, in fact for most small/medium sized organisations and Sole Traders, it is permitted for an external Safety Advisor to be appointed.

The appointment of an external Safety Advisor, such as Your Safety Advisor Ltd offers a far more cost-effective and efficient option. This is the very definition of Outsourcing Health & Safety.

When appointed a Health and Safety Consultant, the company doing the appointing needs to ensure that the Health and Safety Advisor is suitably Qualified and Experienced in not only Health and Safety, but also that they have direct knowledge and experience of your industry ie: Construction!

As a building contractor or electrician, there is no point in engaging a former local authority safety advisor who has only ever worked in an office environment. You need a professional that specialises in your sector. This is where Your Safety Advisor Ltd excels, we are Construction Safety Specialists.

Our Principal Safety Advisor is a fully qualified Chartered Civil Engineer, he has many years experience of working in design offices and on construction sites, he has an intimate understanding of the construction industry. He is well regarded as a specialist Construction Safety Advisor, having even been employed by the Isle of Man Government as their specialist Construction Safety Advisor.

For more information about Your Safety Advisor Ltd, please visit our About us page on our website.

Why You Should Consider Outsourcing Health and Safety

With the support of Your Safety Advisor Ltd as your competent health and safety consultants, you will be able to demonstrate your compliance with Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, by having access to competent health and safety advice and support for your business.

This will help to prove that you take health and safety seriously and in turn it will help you to pre-qualify for tender lists and contracts which you may have previously been excluded from.

Outsourcing your Health and Safety provision is also significantly more cost-effective than hiring a full-time or even part-time employee, plus you do not to worry about the associated on-costs of employing and managing additional people.

At just £350.00 plus VAT for 12 months cover, our annual costs to act as your safety advisor are less than £1 a day.