Health and Safety Competent Person Service

Candy Management Consultants Ltd offer a tailored Health & Safety competent person service throughout the UK. It is a legal requirement that you must get help from a competent person to enable you to meet the requirements of health and safety law. A competent person is someone who has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities that allow them to assist you properly. The level of competence required will depend on the complexity of the situation and the particular help you need.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

These regulations generally make more explicit what employers are required to do to manage health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974. Both the regulations and the act apply to every work activity and are enforced by the HSE.

The main requirement on all employers is to carry out a risk assessments and identify significant risks to health and safety of workers and other impacted by the work. Employers with five or more employees must record the finding of the risk assessment.

Besides carrying out a risk assessment, employers also need to:

  • Appoint competent people to help them to implement the arrangements;
    Set up emergency procedures.
  • Make arrangements for implementing the health and safety measures identified as necessary by the risk assessment.
  • Provide clear information and training to employees;
    Work together with other employers sharing the same workplace.

Your competent person must advise you on what legal duties you have in relation to your work activities and what actions you must take in order to comply with those legal duties. Where applicable the competent person will advise on industry best practice which is normally covered in HSE guidance notes. Guidance notes are used a benchmark in courts and none compliance can lead to substantive fines.  

The law says that every business must have a policy for managing health and safety. If you employ 5 or more people you must document this policy.

A health and safety policy sets out your general approach to health and safety. It explains how you, as an employer, will manage health and safety in your business. It must clearly say who does what, when and how. You must share the policy, and any changes to it, with your employees. Your competent person will advice on what you policy should contain including the arrangements you have in place. 

As part of managing the health and safety of your business, you must control the
risks in your workplace. To do this you need to think about what might cause harm
to people and decide whether you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm. Your competent person will advice on what your significant risk are and how best to implement controls to remove or reduce those risk. Controls by law must be practicable and reasonable. You adviser will ensure the advice meets this fundamental requirement. 

You are responsible for fire safety in a business or other non-domestic premises if you’re an employer, building owner, landlord, occupier, or anyone else with control of the premises. You must complete a fire risk assessment and ensure that fire prevention controls and emergency planning meet legal requirement. 

Your competent person will advice you on safe systems of work. This will ensure that the controls identified in your risk assessments are followed and monitored. 

Your competent person will assist you in monitoring the effectiveness of the measures you put in place to control the risks in your workplace. As part of your monitoring, you should investigate incidents to ensure that corrective action is taken, the findings are shared and any necessary improvements are put in place.

Accident Investigations will help you to:

  • Identify why your existing control measures failed and what improvements or additional measures are needed
  • Plan to prevent the incident from happening again
  • Point to areas where your risk assessment needs reviewing
  • Improve risk control in your workplace in the future