Asbestos Supervisory Licenses

Posted on June 14, 2010 with 1 Comment

Clients regularly ask about whether Spectra Analysis are Supervisory License Holders and don’t necessarily understand the purpose of a Supervisory License

Asbestos Licensing is a permissioning regime, one of only a very few that operate in the

United Kingdom. The Heath and Safety Commission’s (HSC) Policy Statement on ‘Our approach to permissioning regimes’, which is available from the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/permissioning.pdf  gives information.

You will see that licensing is an addition to the general framework of health and safety law and is very resource intensive, and builds on the fact that the legal duty to manage risks lies with the organisations that create them.

Therefore, licences will only be granted to organisations that actually require the licence to carry out their undertaking and meet the requirements needed to be granted the licence. Licences will not be granted when a licence is not required.

A supervisory licence holder is assessed by HSE on their ability to act as the supervisor of a licensable job, directly supervising the work and in effect doing the job of the supervisor of the licensed contractor working with the asbestos. They are therefore part of the licensed contractor team carrying out the asbestos work when carrying out supervisory work under the conditions of their licence.

HSE has not assessed their ability to manage projects, carry out quality assurance work or analytical work.

Project management, development and installation of asbestos management systems and quality assurance, can play a vital role in improving the health and safety of workers and ensuring clients get best value when appointing licensed contractors to carry out asbestos removal.

Effective project management can greatly improve the overall performance of an asbestos contract. However, none of these activities require a licence.

Clients are misguided in asking for a supervisory licence to work with asbestos when it is not required.

This advice is given by GREG HAYWOOD – Head of Asbestos Licensing Unit (HSE)

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Where can people find out more information on Asbestos?

Web: http://www.spectra-analysis.co.uk/

Blog: http://www.ukas-asbestos-surveys.co.uk/

Telephone: 01268 534 380

Mobile: 07825 369 381

Email: AngelaChouaib@spectra-analysis.co.uk

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