The next step

To the health and safety resources

[Weblink]

H&S poster law

What’s the law?

The approved health and safety law poster details your duties under health and safety legislation. Plus, it contains a series of boxes to fill in, including the name of the competent person with day-to-day health and safety responsibilities and the address of the relevant enforcing authority for your business, e.g. local authority. There are various versions of the poster so that you can select the most appropriate for your business, depending on where in the UK it’s based.

As an employer you have a legal duty to either: (1)  display the approved health and safety law poster in a prominent position in each workplace; or (2) provide each worker with a copy of the approved leaflet. The former costs around £5 whilst the latter is free to download (see The next step ).

Tip 1. If you have staff who speak different languages you don’t have to print the poster in each of them. The leaflet is your best bet as it’s published in many languages.

Tip 2. The poster was changed in 2009 so make sure you have the right version on display.

Read it, please. You can distribute the poster and the employers’ liability insurance certificate electronically if you prefer. But remember that your communications must reach all staff, so make sure all (including cleaning and maintenance) staff can access any electronic versions.

Anything else?

Apart from these two items, you should also have the following clearly displayed:

• Fire evacuation procedures. Instructions for what to do in the event of a fire (or other emergency) should be displayed. This notice should state the fire evacuation point for the floor or area it relates to.
• First aid details. This should give the name of the first aider/appointed person for your business/building.
• Health and safety policy statement. This is the first part of your health and safety policy. It sets out your approach to managing health and safety and should ideally be signed by the managing director.

You will also need to use signs, notices, etc. to warn of a specific hazard. You should consider using signs where a hazard poses a significant risk that can’t be avoided or controlled by other means, e.g. by changing working practices; the sign will help to further reduce a residual risk.

Tip. Safety signs are not a substitute for other means of controlling risks to employees, e.g. training. They are to warn of any remaining significant risk or to instruct employees on the measures to take in relation to these risks.

Bored of notices

Too many signs increase the chances of people ignoring them, so only use them when necessary. In each area that you have a notice board, make an employee responsible for seeing that the information is kept up to date and clear, e.g. posters and signs are not ripped or faded.

For a link to the resources, visit http://tipsandadvice-business.co.uk/indicator (CD 21.05.06).