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Category Archives: Updates

CDM 2015

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Nick Anderson

CDM 2015

On 6 April 2015, CDM 2007 was revoked and replaced by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015).

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) are the main set of regulations for managing the health, safety and welfare of construction projects.

CDM 2015 is subject to certain transitional arrangements, for construction projects that began before 6 April 2015 and continue beyond that date. It applies to all building and construction work and includes new build, demolition, refurbishment, extensions, conversions, repair and maintenance.

Key changes of the new CDM Regulations 2015

1. All projects must have:
  • workers with the right skills, knowledge, training and experience
  • contractors  providing appropriate supervision, instruction and information
  • a written construction phase plan
2. Project where more than one contractor is involved (domestic or non-domestic) must have 1 above plus:
  • principal designer and principal contractor must be appointed
  • a health and safety file
3. If work is scheduled to:
  • last longer than 30 working days and 
  • have more than 20 workers working simultaneously at any point in the project
  • OR exceeds 500 person days
All of 1 and 2 above plus
  • Client must notify project to HSE
The CITB have created a short video which explains the basics of the new Regulations. You can watch it here. CDM 2015
Posted in News, Resources, Updates | Tags: cdm, cdm 2015, HSE, law, regulations | Leave a comment |

NEBOSH Diploma Unit D Results

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Nick Anderson

nebosh diploma unit d results

As usual, NEBOSH has began to release the Diploma Unit D Results a week ahead of schedule. 

How have you done? Better or worse than expected? 

Hopefully better! For most students, the NEBOSH Diploma Unit D marks the end of a long road of studying. But what if your marks are not what you expected? Well, submitting an EAR (Enquiry About Result) is a fairly straight forward process. If you need 3-4 marks to get that all important pass, then go for it.

If you are faced with re-submitting, then have no fear. Dust yourself down and see our Guide to Unit D Report.

Posted in News, Resources, Updates | Tags: current | Leave a comment |

HSE ABC – How do your health and safety skills measure up?

Posted on May 18, 2014 by Nick Anderson

It’s as easy as ABC

A risk assessment for using a tape measure and written guidance for walking up stairs – these are just two of the bizarre actions that some companies mistakenly believe are necessary.

These absurd steps were typical of several myths uncovered in an HSE survey. So to help anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction, HSE is encouraging small and medium sized employers to use its free online tools and guidance.

The H&S ABC provides simple information to help small firms save time, effort and money by identifying the things they really do and don’t need to do.

The results also revealed that one in five people (22 per cent) surveyed believed they weren’t capable of managing health and safety themselves and needed to hire a specialist consultant. Eleven per cent believed that a qualified electrician must test electrical appliances, such as kettles and toasters, every year – another persistent myth.

Nearly a third of small businesses surveyed classed themselves as ‘hopeful-have-a-gos’ when it came to health and safety – aware they have to take some action but unsure where to start or if what they are doing is correct.

Whether a business employs one or two people, or is expanding to multiple locations, the free online guidance will help even complete beginners get health and safety right.

Visit www.hse.gov.uk/abc to get started with sensible health and safety.

Posted in News, Updates | Tags: health and safety news, HSE, management, skills, work, workplace | Leave a comment |

Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Nick Anderson

EU-OSHA‘s Healthy Workplaces Campaign 2014 – 2015 is ‘Healthy workplaces manage stress’. You can find campaign specific information and resources at their website www.healthy-workplaces.eu/en

The key task of the campaign is raising awareness of stress and psychosocial risks in the workplace and encouraging employers, managers and workers and their representatives to work together to manage those risks.

Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress

The Campaign Guide presents the main principles and objectives of the campaign. It includes definitions of stress and psychosocial risks, and contains useful facts and figures to help you in your awareness-raising activities.

Tackling stress and psychosocial risks creates a healthy work environment, improves worker well-being and business performance. To promote these outcomes, the main focuses of the campaign are:

  • To raise awareness of the growing problem of work-related stress and psychosocial risks.
  • To provide and promote the use of simple, practical tools and guidance for managing psychosocial risks and stress in the workplace.
  • To highlight the positive effects of managing psychosocial risks and stress in the workplace, including the business case.

The Campaign Guide explains the background to the problem and why it is so important to tackle it. It outlines the warning signs and how to prevent and manage psychosocial risks, providing information on resources and support.

Posted in News, Resources, Updates | Tags: EU, eu-osha, euosha, stress | Leave a comment |

Employment Law and the EU

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Nick Anderson

Employment Law and the EU Influence.

Employment law in the UK has undergone major changes in recent times, particularly in the last 20 years or so, with the EU exercising a significant influence on many areas of UK law.

History and Background

The European Commission takes responsibility for the co-ordination of national policies on labour, market, and workplace regulation. The treaties of the EU establish these areas of competence.

The Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957 by the six founding states (France, West Germany, Italy, Benelux), stated in Article 140 that one of the objects of the Community was to harmonise laws relating to employment and labour law. This covered areas such as working conditions, health and safety, trade union law, and social security.

Ten years after an unsuccessful bid to join the European Community, the UK acceded to the Treaty of Rome in 1973. The European Communities Act 1972 provided that all obligations arising out of any treaty shall have legal effect in the UK without further enactment. Treaty articles are directly applicable and will override national law.

In addition to treaties, the EU may issue directives. These are binding as to the result to be achieved, but the member state must implement them in their own laws within a prescribed time limit set by the EU.

The Courts of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) is based in Luxembourg, and is made up from one judge from each EU country, assisted by eight advocates-general. Their independence is guaranteed, despite being appointed by each of the member states governments. The ECJ’s role is to ensure that treaties are correctly interpreted and applied, and that EU law is complied with.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights was approved by the EU member states at the Nice Summit in December 2000. It set out a whole range of civil, political, and social rights to be enjoyed by EU citizens.  It was a political declaration, without legal force, but it became legally binding in the Lisbon Reform Treaty on 3 November 2009. The Lisbon Treaty amends the Treaty on the European Union (Maastricht) and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (Rome).

Examples of EU Law

Perhaps the most well known EU directive to be enacted into UK employment law is the Working Time Directive (93/104/EC of 23 November 1993). The original directive was amended by Directive 2000/34/EC of 22 June 2000.

The Working Time Directive is a collection of regulations concerning hours of work, designed to protect the health and safety of workers. Key features are the limiting of the working week to 48 hours in 7 days, and a minimum rest period of 11 hours in each 24 hours. The provisions of this directive, and the Young Workers Directive (94/33/EC), were enacted into UK law by way of the Working Time Regulations in October 1998.

Whilst some EU countries have sought to reduce working hours well below the 48 hour limit, under the Working Time Regulations it is possible to opt out or to average out the hours worked over a period of 17 weeks or more.

Employees’ rights to information about the business they work for were provided under the Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 1999. This implemented the European Works Council Directive (94/95/EC). The regulations require a European Works Council (or EWC) to be established in companies with at least 1000 employees and at least 150 employees in each of two EU member states. Employee representatives are expected to receive information relevant to the terms and conditions of employment, and information about activities which may significantly affect the interest of those they represent. There must also be a written agreement on the arrangements for the information and consultation of employees.

The 1999 Regulations have been further enhanced several times under the Information and Consultation Directive 2002 (2002/14/EC), and presently, the Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 applies to employers with at least 50 employees.

The Temporary and Agency Workers Directive (2008/104/EC) seeks to guarantee people who get jobs through employment agencies the same pay and conditions as permanent employees carrying out the same work in the business that they are employed.  Proposed by the European Commission in 2002, it was met with stubborn opposition from a minority of member states, the UK included. In the end the UK agreed to implement the Directive by December 2011.

The purpose of the Temporary Agency Workers Directive, as with all EU Directives, is to harmonise the law across Europe. As well as giving temporary workers more rights after a 12 week qualifying period, it also serves to prevent unfair competition between member states. It is also intended to prevent ‘social dumping’ – when employers move operations to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labour costs. The social function is to ensure a higher standard of living and quality of life, consistent with the aims of the European Union Treaty. On implementation, the UK’s 1.3m agency workers gained the same pay and conditions as permanent workers after being employed for 12 weeks.

Is the EU influence on UK law without limits?

There are times when the UK may be viewed within Europe as a rebel state, taking a “pick and choose” approach to EU law. Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden and Spain all have working time limits of 39 or 40 hours a week, as a result of the Working Time Directive. A bold experiment by the French government in 2000 to introduce a 35 hour week resulted in industry and workplace agreements covering millions of workers, reducing working time and introducing more flexible ways of working. Yet, despite a vote by the European Parliament to end the UK opt out, the UK government are still determined to keep it. It is likely that the debate will continue.

In a report published in 2007*, the House of Lords European Union Committee stated that the relatively light regulation of the UK labour market, in comparison with some other EU Member States, has been advantageous in allowing a flexibility of employment arrangements which has benefited the UK economy. It did, however, conclude that problems of social disadvantage and structural unemployment, where these exist in the UK, would be better addressed by measures aimed at tackling poor skills and social inequality than by changing labour law.

Also, many member states of the EU see the Charter of Fundamental Rights as a useful addition to the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK government, however, has secured a written guarantee in the Lisbon Reform Treaty that the Charter cannot be used by the European Courts of Justice to alter British labour law, or other laws that deal with social rights. The negotiated protocol which is annexed to the Lisbon Treaty states the following –

  • The charter does not extend the ability of the European Court of Justice, or any court or tribunal of the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of the United Kingdom are inconsistent with fundamental rights, freedoms and principles that it reaffirms.
  • In particular, and for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in Title IV of the charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom, except in so far as the United Kingdom has provided for such rights in its national law.

Predictably, there were mixed reactions to this agreement. Speaking in June 2007, the UK prime minister of the time, Tony Blair, said that the outcome of the talks made it “absolutely clear that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is not going to be justiciable in British courts or alter British Law”

The Deputy Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), John Cridland, stated: “We welcome the government’s success in securing what appear clear opt-outs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights in areas that could have damaged the UK’s flexible labour market”

The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brendan Barber, said: “It is extremely disappointing to see that the UK workers and citizens are to enjoy fewer rights than those in the rest of Europe… Are we to think that the UK economy can only prosper by treating UK employees worse than others in Europe?”

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats at the time, similarly warned: “By opting out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, there is now the danger of a two tier citizenship in the EU”

Perhaps until full public support is gained by way of a referendum on future treaties, the UK will not enjoy the same freedom and equality as the majority of Europe already does.

 


(*)Modernising European Union Labour Law, has the UK anything to gain, House of Lords European Union Committee, report published 27 June 2007. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldselect/ldeucom/120/120.pdf

Posted in Resources, Updates | Tags: Charter, Directives, ECJ, EU, Europe, European Commission, law, Treaty | Leave a comment |

NEBOSH Command Words

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Nick Anderson

NEBOSH Command Words are used very carefully in exams, and each question has a certain order of words to try to enable candidates to understand what Examiners are looking for.

In every question the skills required by the specific command words are also shown in the marks allocated for the question.

Click here for the NEBOSH Command Words page

Posted in Resources, Updates | Tags: certificate, command, diploma, exams, nebosh | Leave a comment |

NEBOSH Diploma Study Notes Added

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Nick Anderson

The full set of NEBOSH Diploma notes are now uploaded.

These handy PDF’s are designed for revision on-the-go. They are based around the RMS study books, and are NOT intended to replace any material supplied by any course provider.

Click here for the whole set, Units A to C.

Some Unit D resources will follow soon.

Posted in Resources, Updates | Tags: diploma, downloads, nebosh, notes, pdf, revision, study | Leave a comment |

New NEBOSH Diploma content added to Resources

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Nick Anderson
NEBOSH Diploma Unit B “Quick Revision” PDF added. More detailed Unit notes will follow soon. Click here to view. 
Posted in Resources, Updates | Tags: diploma, downloads, nebosh, study | 2 Comments |
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