News

Revised Control of Asbestos Regulations (Northern Ireland) SR 2012/179 have now been published and will come into force on 28 May 2012.

The new Regulations have been made in order to comply with a legal opinion issued by the European Commission which determined that the previous Asbestos Regulations SI 2007/31 had not fully implemented the relevant European legislation.

The main change is that employers carrying out some types of non-licensed work will now be required to notify that work, make sure the employees carrying out such work have medical examinations at least once every three years and to keep a record of the work carried out by each worker. However there will be a three year transition period until 1 April 2015, before the new requirement on medical examinations comes into force.

The core requirements of the previous Regulations to carry out a risk assessment, plan work, put in place suitable control measures and train workers are all unchanged. The work for which a licence is currently required is also unchanged, as are the requirements relating to licensed workers.

Following the wettest April on record, the Environment Agency has announced that 19 parts of England are no longer in drought.

Heavy and persistent rain in the South West, the Midlands and Yorkshire has boosted river and reservoir levels, reducing pressure on the environment and water supplies. River flows have gone from below normal levels at all sites in March to exceptionally high levels in almost half of the spots monitored by the Environment Agency.

Water companies in those areas are unlikely to impose hosepipe bans on customers this summer, the Environment Agency said.

Groundwater levels are still low across the country, and parts of East Anglia and the South East remain in drought with hosepipe bans in place.

England's biggest water company, Thames Water, said it could rule out applying for a Drought Order allowing it to impose more serious restrictions on water use following the weeks of heavy rain. However, the firm warned its 8.8 million customers in London and the Thames Valley that it was too early to lift the hosepipe ban imposed early in April.

Richard Aylard, Thames Water's sustainability director, said, "Despite all the recent rain, we still have a serious groundwater shortage, and we could yet have a long, hot summer, so, much as we'd love to, it would be irresponsible for us to lift the hosepipe ban just yet."

Drought status has been lifted for South Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, parts of Gloucestershire, parts of Hampshire, most of Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

For more information, see the:

• Water Resources Act 1991;
• Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order SI 2010/2231;
• Environment Agency website for the latest drought information - http://cedr.ec/2g.

The Committee on Climate Change has published a report which recommends that local authorities in the UK should have a statutory duty to tackle climate change. The report highlights that some councils are taking action on climate change, but many are not, which threatens national carbon reduction targets.

At the moment, there is no requirement for local authorities to take action on climate change, yet councils could make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in areas such as housing, traffic and waste. This, combined with budget constraints imposed on local authorities, means there is a significant risk that local authorities will not develop low-carbon plans.

Committee member Professor Julia King said, "Local authorities have the potential to significantly impact the UK's scale and speed of emissions reductions. There is a wealth of good work being done already at local and regional levels, but many opportunities remain untapped. It is essential that these opportunities are delivered if we are to meet our national carbon targets."

The Council in Bristol, for example, has set a target of reducing their emissions by 40% by 2020, and has cut its own energy bill by almost a third in addition to investing in wind turbines, biomass boilers and solar panels for schools. They have also insulated 30,000 homes.

"We've got national carbon budgets with ambitious emission cuts built into them, and if we weren't to address the cuts local authorities can make, we'd not meet the targets," said David Kennedy, the Committee's chief executive. "Local authorities can have a very big impact in areas such as improving energy efficiency in buildings, sustainable travel and waste management."

For more information, see the:

• Climate Change Act 2008;
• Committee on Climate Change report, "How local authorities can reduce emissions and manage climate risk", available at: http://cedr.ec/86.

It has been announced that Professor Ragnar Löfstedt has been asked by employment minister Chris Grayling to prepare a follow-up "mini-report" to his "Reclaiming Health and Safety for All" review from last November.

The report will to determine how satisfied Löfstedt is with the way the Government is implementing his 26 recommendations, and is expected to be published by the end of January 2013. His suggestions from last year were almost unanimously accepted by Grayling, and included exempting some self-employed people from compliance with safety law, a review of core safety legislation to see if some common requirements can be consolidated and a simplification of the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) 53 approved codes of practice.

The original team of researchers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) who helped with the initial review will reassemble later in the year to evaluate progress on the recommendations. The result will be a 10-page summary, which will eventually be made publicly available.

The first report suggested varying deadlines for proposed changes, such as April 2013 for the HSE to review the Work at Height Regulations SI 2005/735 and April 2015 to examine legislation limited to particular industrial sectors such as construction, to see if there is scope for consolidating them. However, these timescales have been shortened by the Prime Minister who has asked for most of the recommendations to be implemented by the end of year.

For more information, see:

• http://cedr.ec/1o, which is the original report "Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation";
• Proposals to revoke seven Statutory Instruments - CD238;
• Proposals to remove fourteen legislative measures - CD239.
  

A consultation has been published which aims to deliver a more simple legislative framework which will allow the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) to focus on the most important environmental problems and provide more consistent enforcement.

The new legislative framework will aim for a single, proportionate and risk-based permissioning structure (licences, permits, rules etc). Current permissioning arrangements fall under separate regulatory regimes for the four main regimes, namely water, pollution prevention and control, waste and radioactive. One of the main aims of the new framework is to integrate the requirements of those regimes into a single permissioning structure.

A hierarchy is being proposed, which will include "Permits", "Registration" and "General Binding Rules."

As a result, considerable legislation will be consolidated into one document, such as the:

• Radioactive Substances Act 1993;
• Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2000/323;
• Landfill (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2003/235;
• Waste Incineration (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2003/170;
• Solvent Emission (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2004/26;
• Waste Management Licensing (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2011/228;
• Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2011/209;
• Radioactive Substances Exemption (Scotland) Order SSI 2011/147.

For more information, see the:

• Consultation on Proposals for an Integrated Framework of Environmental Regulation.

JMW Farms Limited of Co. Armagh, have this week been fined a record £187,500, plus £13,000 costs, at Belfast's Laganside Crown Court for health and safety failings that led to the death of 45-year-old employee Robert Wilson.

The company is the first in Northern Ireland to be convicted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, whereby companies and organisations can be found guilty as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care. The conviction follows a joint PSNI and Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSE NI) investigation into the fatal incident, which took place on a pig farm owned by JMW Farms at Tynan, Co Armagh, on 15 November 2010.

Mr Wilson was working at the meal-mixing plant on the farm and was killed after being struck by a metal bin which fell off a forklift. The forklift was being driven by Mark Wright, one of the company directors. The investigation revealed that the bin had not been attached or integrated with the forklift. It was also not possible to insert the lifting forks into the sleeves of the bin as the forks were too large and incorrectly spaced.

Following the hearing, Louis Burns, HSE NI Acting Deputy Chief Executive, said, "This case highlights the importance of managing health and safety in the workplace and demonstrates the terrible consequences of not doing so. The judgement sends a clear message to the Directors in Northern Ireland, whether of a small or large organisation, that they should take health and safety seriously. This new Corporate Manslaughter legislation clarifies the criminal liabilities of companies where serious failures in the management of health and safety result in a fatality. I would therefore urge anyone with a managerial or a supervisory role to ensure that proper management and control systems are in place to prevent another needless death from occurring."