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PRO INSTALLER SEPTEMBER 2013
PRO NEWS
@proinstaller1
Cut red tape to
boost house
building
Moves to cut red-tape
by streamlining housing
standards would be a
major boost to Britain’s
small and medium-sized
house builders, and
will help to increase
the supply and choice
of new homes needed
to address the growing
housing crisis, says the
Federation of Master
Builders (FMB).
As the Government
launched its Housing Stand-
First Aid
Guidance And
Regulation
Changes
From 1st October 2013, the Health and Safety
(First Aid) Regulations 1981 will be amended,
to remove the requirement for HSE to approve
first aid training and qualifications.
The changes are part
of HSE’s work to make
it easier for businesses and other users
to understand how to
comply with health and
safety law, whilst maintaining standards. They
apply to businesses of
all sizes and from all
sectors.
Andy McGrory, HSE’s policy lead for First Aid, said:
“From October, HSE will
no longer approve first-aid
training and qualifications.
The guidance documents
clarify what the law requires and provide practical help to businesses in as-
sessing and understanding
their first aid needs. Where
a first aider is required, the
guidance documents make
it clear that the employer
is free to select a training
provider who is best suited
to those needs.
“We have taken onboard
comments and suggestions
that we have received
through our public consultations on the changes and
from extended stakeholder
discussions and business
input to ensure the guidance provides everything
an employer will need
to manage their first aid
requirements.”
The legal requirement for
employers to ensure they
make adequate provision
for first aid, in accordance
with their first aid needs
assessment, will remain
unchanged.
‘The Health and Safety
(First-Aid) Regulations
1981’, ‘Regulations and
Guidance (L74)’ and ‘Selecting a first-aid training
provider (GEIS3)’ are now
available on the HSE website.
‘unnecessary
complexity and
cost to the house
building industry’
ards Review consultation
process, Beatrice Orchard,
Head of Communications at
the FMB, responded: “The
proliferation of an array of
local, national and voluntary standards has added
unnecessary complexity and
cost to the house building
industry in recent decades.
These costs have a disproportionate impact on
smaller firms and smaller
developments.”
Orchard continued: “It is
essential we continue to
bear down on unnecessary
red tape and bureaucracy, to
encourage more SME developers to bring new homes
to market.”
Orchard added: “There is
no reason why this should
entail any reduction in the
standards of new homes
being built; indeed clearer
and more consistent national standards will be a huge
improvement on the current
complex system. We would
also welcome steps to incorporate any nationally described standards proposed
by the review into Building
Regulations in future.”
www.fmb.org.uk
Day Of Action Welcomed
Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has welcomed the TUC’s
announcement of a coordinated day of action against
blacklisting on Wednesday 20th November 2013.
The day will consist of
a lobby of the Westminster Parliament,
the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh
Senedd, as well as a
number of protests
and lobbies across the
UK.
The unions will be calling on employers, which
have or continue to blacklist workers, to Own Up,
dal on the scale of phone
hacking and repeated its
call for a ‘Leveson style’
inquiry, as well as action
from policymakers, to
toughen up the regulations
against blacklisting.
The union will be calling
on activists up and down
the UK to take part in
activities to highlight the
need for justice for the
victims of this industrial
‘The unions will be calling on
employers, which have or continue
to blacklist workers, to Own
Up, Clean Up, and Pay Up.’
Clean Up, and Pay Up.
Unite has described the
blacklisting of construction
workers as a national scan-
scandal and to eradicate
it from the construction
industry and ensure that it
can never happen again.
‘strengthen
legislation’
Unite assistant general
secretary Gail Cartmail
said: “The burden of proof
weighs heavily on workers
who find themselves blacklisted and even where there
is compelling evidence this
is met with denial. Across
construction there remains
a staggering complacency,
which must change.
“Unite firmly believes
blacklisting continues and
we need politicians to act.
The only way to consign
this morally indefensible
practice to the history
books is to strengthen
legislation against blacklisting to give the law real
teeth.”
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www.hse.gov.uk