Contents:

• ISO9001 successes
• Customer property

• New Corporate Manslaughter legislation
• European Court upholds SFAIRP
• COSHH Changes
• Risk assessment
• OHSAS18001 revised

Reminder: To contact Andy Saunders, please use the Ipswich office number 01473 726427..

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QES Connect is pleased to report further successes in its clients achieving ISO9001 certification. A recent ISO9001 assessment report on one our small clients from an assessor for a well-known certification body was complementary about the Quality Manual that we had prepared.

"The Quality Manual has been succinctly written and unnecessary verbiage avoided".

This supports our long-held view, as expressed in our May 2007 newsletter that quality management systems documents do not need to be lengthy documents, particularly in small businesses.

Do you want to achieve an internationally recognised standard for your business without disappearing under a mountain of paperwork? Contact QES Connect for advice on implementing ISO9001.

In this newsletter, we are focussing on one aspect of quality management systems that is often overlooked, customer property. As well as meeting the requirements of ISO9001, the management of customer property makes good sense in order to keep customers satisfied. Customer property may be items supplied by the customer to be incorporated into a product, or customer equipment that is being serviced, or the customer's premises where work is to be carried out.

The first stage in managing customer property is to identify where it occurs, then to implement simple checks to verify its condition when received. The property needs to be identified, particularly if there is a risk of it being mixed with other similar material, perhaps by labelling, or by a special storage location. When being worked on, the property needs to be adequately safeguarded. If any customer property is lost, damaged, or unsuitable, this needs to be reported to the customer.

Clause 7.5.4 of ISO9001:2000 sets out requirements for managing customer property but it does not require a written procedure. To be able to answer queries from the customer, and to demonstrate to an auditor that the system is operating correctly, there need to be records. The form of records will vary from company to company, but could be a register of customer material received, or a space on the job sheet to record the condition of customer property prior to starting work

Customer property is of value to the customer, and companies need to manage it accordingly, not leave it to chance. This is particularly important when customer property is not regularly received. Therefore customer property must be managed as part of a quality management system.

If you need help with quality management systems, or are unsure how to deal with customer property, contact QES Connect.

The Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act finally became law on 26 July 2007. Prior to this legislation it was possible for a corporate body, such as a company, to be prosecuted for a wide range of criminal offences, including manslaughter. To be guilty of the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter, a company had to be in gross breach of a duty of care owed to the victim. The prosecution of a company for manslaughter by gross negligence was often referred to as corporate manslaughter. As the law stood, before a company could be convicted of manslaughter, a directing mind of the organisation (that is, a senior individual who could be said to embody the company in his actions and decisions) also had to be guilty of the offence. This is known as the identification principle. Crown bodies (those organisations that are legally a part of the Crown, such as Government departments) could not be prosecuted for criminal offences under the doctrine of Crown immunity. In addition, many Crown bodies, such as Government departments, do not have a separate legal identity for the purposes of a prosecution.

The new Act defines a new offence, which will be called corporate manslaughter in England and Wales and Northern Ireland and corporate homicide in Scotland. The new offence builds on key aspects of the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter referred to above. However, rather than being contingent on the guilt of one or more individuals, liability for the new offence depends on a finding of gross negligence in the way in which the activities of the organisation are run. In summary, the offence is committed where, in particular circumstances, an organisation owes a duty to take reasonable care for a person's safety and the way in which activities of the organisation have been managed or organised amounts to a gross breach of that duty and causes the person's death. How the activities were managed or organised by senior management must be a substantial element of the gross breach.

The legislation applies to any body corporate, whether incorporated in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. This includes companies incorporated under companies legislation, as well as bodies incorporated under statute (as is the case with many non-Departmental Public Bodies and other bodies in the public sector) or by Royal Charter. The offence also applies to partnerships.

The term "senior management" is defined to mean those persons who play a significant role in the management of the whole or a substantial part of the organisation's activities. This covers both those in the direct chain of management as well as those in, for example, strategic or regulatory compliance roles.

The offence will only apply where an organisation owes a duty of care. Examples are its duty to its employees or to other persons working for the organisation, its duty as an occupier of buildings or land, its duty when the organisation is supplying goods or services, and when constructing or maintaining buildings, infrastructure or vehicles etc or when using plant or vehicles etc. Although not relevant to QES Connect clients, the offence also relates to the duty of care that is owed because a person is being held in detention or custody.

No directors or partners will be prosecuted under the new law. However, it should be noted that prosecutions can also be made under existing health and safety law for actions that have led to the same incident, and these could result in prosecution of individual directors.

Fines under the new Act are likely to be significantly higher than under existing health and safety law, and the Act gives the courts the power to make a 'publicity order', so that companies will be required to publicise the details of their conviction.

Clearly this can only be a brief summary of this legislation, but it emphasises the need for a safety culture in organisations that is instigated and promoted by the senior management.

For more information on management of health and safety, contact QES Connect.

As an adjunct to the COSHH regulations, the Health & Safety executive publishes a list of Workplace Exposure Limits (WELs). A revised list has recently been published, and comes into force on 1st October 2007. There are new WELs for:

• 2-Aminoethanol,
• Bromine,
• Chlorine,
• Cyanamide,
• Diethylamine,
• Diphosphorus Pentasulphide,
• Diphosphorus Pentoxide,
• Isopentane,
• 2-(2-Methoxyethoxy) Ethanol,
• Morpholine,
• Neopentane,
• Nitric acid,
• Nitrobenzene,
• Pentane,
• Phosphine,
• Phosphorus pentachloride,
• Pyrethrum (purified of sensitising lactones),
• Resorcinol,
• Toluene.

Companies using these substances, or products containing them, need to review their control measures to ensure that they are adequate to meet the new limits.

We will notify current QES Connect clients for whom we have carried out COSHH assessments individually if there have been any changes to the limits relating to substances in their COSHH assessments.

If we have not carried out COSHH assessments for you, and you need help with applying the regulations, get in touch by one of the routes at the head of this newsletter.

As a part of the Government's Better Regulation Agenda the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have initiated a dedicated project to help small and medium size businesses (SMEs) to fulfil their health and safety requirements as outlined by law. With this initiative HSE aims to reduce the cost of risk assessment to most business by a third.

Speaking at an event that announced a number of government better regulation initiatives HSC Chair Sir Bill Callaghan said, "What has come to be known as 'elfandsafety' can be a frustrating business. In part it's frustrating because so many of the stories you hear are based on misinterpretations of the law, or the misguided actions of a few individuals. In reality much health and safety law is flexible, but it can be intimidating if you are not sure what is required."

Building on HSE's sensible risk campaign Sir Bill announced the launch of three more of HSE's example risk assessments to help businesses. He continued, "We are saying you don't need to overcomplicate things, keep your risk assessment fit for purpose, make it a living document and act on it. Risk assessment should be about what practical steps you need to take to protect people, not paperwork for its own sake. By itself, filling in a form never saved a life. It should be a means to an end - sensible risk management."

HSE has been working closely with stakeholders to develop industry-specific concise and practical example risk assessments that will help businesses with the information they need to make informed decisions, and make significant impact on the amount of time and money they feel they need to spend managing the risks in their workplaces. This project will help SMEs understand what a 'good enough' risk assessment looks like.

At the same event the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) launched its study of the cumulative impact of health and safety regulation on low risk businesses which HSE will be supporting.

(HSE press release July 2007)

This press release confirms what we at QES Connect have always said, that risk assessments are not about generating reams of paper, but are about a sensible review of all the likely causes of incidents and illness, then implementing sensible risk reduction measures. If you need help with risk assessment, talk to QES Connect.

OHSAS18001 is a standard for health and safety management systems, similar to those for quality (ISO9001) and environment (ISO14001). The latest version of the standard has been adopted as a British Standard BS OHSAS 18001:2007. The standard now puts increased emphasis on health, and the definition of the term "hazard" no longer refers to "damage to property or damage to the workplace environment", which is considered to be not directly related to occupational health and safety management. There have been a number of changes to terminology, such as replacement of the term ""tolerable risk" by "acceptable risk", and the term "accident" is now included in the term "incident". There are new requirements for participation and consultation, and for investigation of accidents. This is not a complete list of the changes, but is to alert our readers to the existence of the revised standard, which came into force on 12 July 2007. There is a 2 year transition period for existing users of the previous version to make the transition to the new standard.

Companies that require an external assessment and certification of their health and safety management system can use BS OHSAS18001 as a reference standard. Unlike ISO9001 and ISO14001, there is usually no customer or regulator pressure to achieve this standard, because the impact of poorly managed health and safety is felt by the business, and not by customers. Therefore take up of the standard by small to medium size businesses has been low in our experience. Also other standards such as Health & Safety Executive's HSG65 (Successful Health & Safety Management) are available, and all are based on the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle, which can be implemented without external assessment. There is no direct legal requirement to implement a health and safety management system, but HSG65, like all HSE guidance, says in its foreword that "health and safety inspectors seek to ensure compliance with the law and may refer to this guidance as illustrating good practice".

If you are interested in improved management of health and safety, or achieving external certification of your health and safety management, please contact QES Connect.

Produced by QES Connect Ltd. Except where stated, the material included in the newsletter is taken from freely available public sources. It may be reproduced without permission for non-commercial purposes.