H&S has been seen as an interference in the proper job of getting on and dealing with all the real issues of property management but now of course managing safety is very much part of the role. Consequently, for this and many other reasons blocks of flats are being better safety managed now than before. However, there are a number of places where the management of safety seem to stall.

The first of which is accepting and acting on the need for risk assessment in the first place. Second, dealing with the outcome of the assessments for which there are two common reasons; budgets and time and, finally, reviewing and managing safety issues in the ensuing years.

In this new series of articles we shall be reviewing basic safety requirements that you should be dealing with to help ensure safety compliance.

Understanding the Basics

There are fundamental H&S duties and responsibilities that managing agents and RMC directors have. The key areas that you are probably familiar with are:

General Duties – Under the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974

1) Contractor safety
2) Staff welfare
3) Tenant and visitor safety within the common parts

Risk Assessment requirements

1) Health & safety risk assessments – Management of Health & Safety
Regs 1999 & Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
2) Fire Risk assessments – Fire Regulatory Reform Order 2005
3) Asbestos management & surveys – Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006
4) Legionella Management – ACOP (L8) 2001

There are also many other H&S legal requirements that you need to comply with and include specialist areas that are worthwhile looking at such as Permits to Work and Working at Height issues.

Action plan

Which blocks need a risk assessment of the common areas? The short answer is all residential blocks regardless of the number of units. When should these assessments be completed by? All of the above requirements should now be fulfilled. In some cases, particularly large portfolios, this might have proven to be practically very difficult to achieve. However, at the very least an action plan and costings should have been developed to ensure these assessments are planned for and will be completed within a set period of time.

Who is doing what? At Tetra we find many agents adopting different positions and approaches to dealing with these tasks. The level of technical knowledge and degrees of awareness also differs hugely between agents.
We shall be looking in more detail at specific requirements, report content, reviews and some technical points over the next few issues.