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july09 Edition
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ALAG
ALAG
Changes to the guidance on asbestos means that clients must now provide more detailed ifnormation on where the deadly material might be.
The revised HSE asbestos guidance, due out in the summer, aims to provide prospective clients with much more information about how to ensure they’re employing an experienced, qualified person.
Back in 2002, when the duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic premises was introduced, there were warnings about less-than-scrupulous surveyors jumping on the gravy train and delivering sub-standard surveys to unsuspecting clients. How right those warnings have proved to be.
Asbestos surveys can range from the extremely professional, to the down-right disgraceful. A typical feature of the latter variety would be a list of caveats as long as your arm (such as not surveying about 2m, or not accessing areas due to locked doors), which make the documents as good as useless.
A revision of the HSE guide to asbestos surveying should change all that. Because the new version, due out in the summer, aims to provide prospective clients with much more information about how to ensure they’re employing an experienced and qualified person – including a specific section on avoiding caveats. The possible sting in the tale is that it also gives much more information on how surveys should be carried out, which could lead to longer timescales and increased costs.
‘In the worst case scenario, you are talking about thousands and thousands of pounds and delays as well,’ warns Jonathan Francis, a director of Riverside Environmental Solutions, who sits on the Asbestos Testing and Consulting (ATAC) Management Committee.
The current guide MDHS 100 Surveying, Sampling and Assessment of Asbestos, was published in July 2001 to meet the duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic premises which came in under the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations (CAWR) 2002, revised in 2006 to become the Control of Asbestos Regulations.
For many clients, just what their duty is remains a matter of confusion. Since 2004, there have been several prosecutions by the HSE. An HSE spokesperson said one of the aims of the new guide was to make clients aware that their responsibilities went beyond organising a survey – to compiling a register of where there might be asbestos in the building and making that information available to anyone carrying out work on the premises.
Guide Revision
Francis believes that a revision to MDHS 100 is much-needed: “When they brought NDHS 100 out, there was not a lot of meat in it. It was all a bit rushed. It was limited in its expectations: there was no information on what a survey report should look like, or what surveyors should be doing. It was almost saying ‘you need to find everything’.”
The changes in the new draft guide, on which consultation closed in February, fall into two main categories. First, more information to allow clients to procure good-quality surveys. Second, more technical information for surveyors.
Additionally, reference to domestic properties is made for the first time.
The most obvious changes aimed to make life less confusing for the client are changes in name. So out goes the baffling MDHS 100 (part of a series of Methods for Determination of Hazardous Substances) and in comes the no-nonsense Asbestos: the Survey Guide. The three types of survey have shrunk to two and also been renamed. So in MDHS 100 we have type 1 (for management of a pr0operty where no samples are taken), type 2 (management, samples taken) and type 3 (pre-demolition or major refurbishment). In the new guide there will be a choice of management or refurbishment / demolition.
This will make life more straightforward, says Francis, as some clients were confused by the type 1, 2 and 3 terminology, thinking it referred to the rigour of the survey rather than the purpose: “We used to get people asking for a level 2.5 survey,” says Francis.
The client also receives some strong advice on how to avoid those unhelpful caveats mentioned at the top of the article. Under a section headed Survey Restrictions and Caveats, the revised guidance says: “The vale and usefulness of the survey can be seriously undermined where t=either the client or surveyor imposes restrictions on the survey scope or on the technologies / method used by the surveyor.” It goes on to explain why it is important that there should not be any restricted access.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a lengthy section entitles Competence and Quality Assurance Procedures, which stets out for the client how they can go about checking the competency of a surveyor and which includes this warning: “The duty holder should not appoint or instruct a surveyor to carry out a survey unless the surveyor is competent. HSE strongly recommends the use of certified surveyors for refurbishment / demolition surveys and larger-scale management surveys.”
In other words, HSE suggests that clients only employ UKAS accredited surveyors, since UKAS is the only recognised accreditation body in the UK. A passing reference to surveyors having the appropriate insurance is also made under the section on survey restrictions and caveats, which could also cause problems for less-reputable firms who may be operating without insurance.
A clause that could potentially pile on the cost is one which refers to sites where previous industrial buildings have been thrown up in the desk-top study. Here, the guide states that a trench must be dug to check whether the building was dropped with asbestos in it.
Additional Clauses
Other additions include: the need for surveys to be carried out on unoccupied premises, or with work areas being partitioned off if the building is occupied, requiring tests and visual inspections before reoccupation; that services should be switched off before any survey requiring an electrician and plumber; and that a structural surveyor should be consulted if the surveyor has to break into a cavity wall.
Francis sees all the additional requirements leading to a different way of pricing surveys. Currently his firm provides a fixed-price fee, following an initial inspection of the site. In the future, he suggests that a base price plus a menu of ‘what-if’ costs may be necessary.
It won’t be until summer that we see what the final guide will look like based on the draft, the revisions should mean that clients will be able to organise better standards of asbestos survey – at a price.
On the plus side, demolition contractors should have more information before they start work. On the minus side, they may find themselves waiting to get on site while more detailed investigations take place.
Jonathan Francis – Director, Riverside Environmental Solutions
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ASBESTOS LICENCE ASSESSMENT GUIDE (0.19 MB)
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