Well I’m really glad I just do domestic joinery and don’t do site work because when I see guys clipped to safety lines, wearing hard hats, earmuffs, safety goggles, gloves and lugging 110v trannies around, I just think that I just couldn’t be ars*d with all that (let alone how you don’t cut your fingers off cause you can’t see what you’re doing!).
I do wonder also how all the H+S fans on here have gravitated into mountain biking?? It’s way, way more dangerous than say rock climbing on naturally protected cliffs. 😯

If the lad really wants to do it then just let him come for a week in half term then don’t have to bother with that and he can still add it on his CV

No matter how you look at it, the timing’s crap. The rest seems reasonable enough- yes it does blur over from “H&S stuff we need to do” to “stuff that’s a good idea to stop us from getting the balls sued off us”, but it’s not unreasonable to be averse to getting your balls sued off. And frankly the college has a responsibility to you, too, so you also don’t get your balls sued off.

You are of course welcome to powersaw your balls off, as long as you’re wearing a hardhat and a class 2 vest. Everyone knows you can’t be harmed as long as you’ve got them on.

Everyone knows you can’t be harmed as long as you’ve got them on.

It’s less likely you will be harmed by others. Nothing can stop you powersawing your own balls off – if you really want to – except maybe chain-mail pants.

To be fair you should have all this in place already, except the 3 relating to learners
I agree the notice is short, maybe you can pull everything together so that next time it wont be an issue

To be honest, and I hate red tape, but if somebody walked into our place this morning I could hand them all that info. It’s just standard procedure, especially when dealing with colleges and schools.

I run a small yet relatively succesful manufacturing businesses specializing in quite unique products.

One cannot have gradations of uniqueness; your products either are, or are not, unique.

Is it any different if a work experience lad or a permanent employee has an accident?

i would expect that the work experience lad is classed as a member of public, not an employee, for which you have a different duty of care for.

i would expect that the work experience lad is classed as a member of public, not an employee, for which you have a different duty of care for.

bang on Thom, he was far more interested in our public liability cover than employers.

I do wonder also how all the H+S fans on here have gravitated into mountain biking?? It’s way, way more dangerous than say rock climbing on naturally protected cliffs.

No one makes us go mtbing, do they? We assess the risk and choose whether to do it or not.

H&S is there to make employers put proper risk assessment in place and manage it rather than just let their employees pay the price.

Back to the OP, it’s the timing that’s piss poor but then I think that the OP has come to the same conclusion.

Chemicals that make you mutate, infertile, blind, blister, fluoresce, bald ,deaf, stop your heart, paralyse, irritate, suffocate, give you cancer, grow breasts

Where can I get hold of some of these chemicals that will make me fluoresce? They sound great!

BTW, I’m very much in favour of Safety and Health, individually or together.

Back to the OP, it’s the timing that’s piss poor but then I think that the OP has come to the same conclusion.

Thats about the size of it in fairness.

We run a lawful and ethical business where everything is in place. I have 12 staff, all good lads who we keep on through good times and bad, although that sometimes means grafting our arses off 🙂 We give them a safe and pleasant environment to work in and we train in-house, many of these lads would be lost to the job market round here, as most have little or no acedemic achievement, and have been given an opportunity here on practical skill, intelligence and good work ethic. For the most part are developed into skilled lads who I believe enjoy their job and get satisfaction from being involved in making a product from drawing board (or CAD screen now 🙂 to final finish and delivery to customer.
The redtape is not mine or anyone elses primary task in our business due to the size, but we get it done on time and make damn sure everything is transparent and totally correct its just that its no individuals actual full time project. Which explains why its a ball-ache to compile it and be grilled on it, I never suggested that it wasnt all there. Which is why I havent had “my arse sued off” as sensitively insinuated that I probably deserve, because I happened to stupidly vent a frustration about it on a MTB internet forum. No despite not deserving to be told that my company is probably not fit for the responsibility of having a work experience placement, and that the suggestion that I am completely negligent to my staff. I probably did deserve some stick for putting the OP on in the first place. It was just a frustrating predictable request at riducously short notice by a government funded body after having said that I’d like to help a young lad get a work placement, and daftly I vented it through a MTB internet forum, which is well known for sweeping generalisations and its fair share of know it alls.
So I did expect and deserve some stick for that.

All being said the assessor was a real world guy who was in the manufacturing industry for 25 years before dropping into education, and he know exactly what the score was and made life easy. So win win the student comes at half term.

Anyhow back to my CAD duties I am busy designing a crash helmet with integrated goggles for children to wear whilst playing with Lego 😉

chickenman – Member

I do wonder also how all the H+S fans on here have gravitated into mountain biking?? It’s way, way more dangerous than say rock climbing on naturally protected cliffs.

really?

i’ve always felt it’s the other way round.

if you don’t like the look of the trail ahead of you, you can stop, get off and walk/carry through it.

if you don’t like the look of the route above you, your options can get very limited, very quickly.

let’s be honest, a lot of mountain biking looks about as dangerous as this:

but even a Vdiff looks like this:

(and often has big chunks of rock falling off it)

Milestone Buttress?

Anyhow back to my CAD duties I am busy designing a crash helmet with integrated goggles for children to wear whilst playing with Lego

– It will need to have some sort of mouthpiece to prevent the chilren from eating said Lego pieces which could eeezily be confised with candy!

– Crash helmet could be marketed to parents in case they step on a Lego while walking around without shoes on

I was putting some posters up for a mate at a sports convention (in Australia) and they insisted we had viz vests and hard hats. These were posters, on a wall …..

We keep falling over (trip hazard!) the “You can’t train them, You are not trained to be a trainer” scenario.
Cooncil Landlords and Board that default to panic but have no money for….training the trainer.

All those H&S courses and advice on measuring competence from a very reasonable reassuring Tutor wasted.

The task – Moving a stack of 10 plastic chairs on a chair trolley.

Chemicals that make you mutate, infertile, blind, blister, bald ,deaf, stop your heart, paralyse, irritate, suffocate, give you cancer, grow breasts, mutate your unborn child, give you more cancer,

and yet due to this gang in powers decision to stop sickness benefit, youre still in elligible.

as for stupid H and S rules,our local TOOLSTATION branches have decided that all staff must wear rubber industrial gloves, trying to get money out of the till or picking up small parts is a laugh for us customers as they struggle, and then put the highly /dangerous /contaminated /sharp parts in a bright yellow carier bag and hand it to us.

So the lad just faces the same souless placement in a massive corporation. And leaves you feeling like they are doing you favour. Is it any wonder why our enginering and manufacturing industries are dying

I know I for one wish they were capable of having the paperwork in place and just handing it over.
Its the inability to deal with simple requests that harms us all

i would expect that the work experience lad is classed as a member of public, not an employee, for which you have a different duty of care for.

so working for them but a member of the public then……right got you.

It seems basic stuff tbh and the other view is college sends inexperienced student to workplace with unsafe machinery and poor practice and they get injured.

If it was my child i would want some checks in place and tbh any workplace should have all that anyway.

12 minutes of your life please.

*Bit slow to start but stick with it.

I have all certificates like that on display in my office and can print the policies off within minutes.

As said by others most of that list should be on display anyway.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4okRvCg2g[/video]

I sympathize with the OP but has s/he actually called the person who sent the checklist through and said “I don’t have all of this stuff on tap, can you help me when we actually meet?”

It sounds like they might have just sent across the usual checklist and they might not be expecting a perfect response. Appreciate that the OP is doing a kid a favour etc…

re: To be fair, as an employer most of that should be in place anyway, shouldn’t it?

I run a small business as well, for over 10 years, and while if you have been in business for a while you no doubt have everything you need in place, what we definitely do not have is time!

There are many, many things I want/need to do for my business that take far less time that spending a half or a whole day with someone to go over what is already done; from updating the marketing collateral I have had since April last year but not found the time to go over and implement, to having a coffee or a drink with some suppliers / clients, etc. etc, etc…

So having the time to take half or a whole day to go through what they probably should have a reference of anyway, and potentially open yourself up to the fact that the person who comes might be having a bad day and open a can of worms, etc… why would you for a 5 day placement?

It’s a bit daft that the college doesn’t just do a ‘could you please confirm in writing that you have the following in place?’ rather than actually going through the rigmoroll of verifcation.

For the ‘H&S gawn mad’ brigade, I still get plenty of calls from people who have had accidents at work, quite a few due to some kind of negligence. The legislation is not to drive people up the wall, it’s so that the poor buggers at the sharp end work-wise who find themselves with (sometimes horrific) injuries can actually get some recompense if the injury is shown to be through no fault of their own.