The Duty to Manage
The information below is largely based on the HSE publication INDG223(rev3) - A Short Guide to Managing Asbestos in Premises, the full text of which can be down-loaded, free of charge, from the HSE Books Website.
How G & L Consultancy can help duty-holders with their Duty to Manage can be found on the Asbestos Management page.
If you own, occupy, manage or have responsibilities for non-domestic premises that may contain asbestos, you will either have:
- a legal duty to manage the risk from this material; or
- a duty to co-operate with whoever manages that risk.
If you have information on the whereabouts of asbestos you will, under the duty of co-operation, be required to make this available to those responsible for managing these risks.
The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations has added this new duty to manage
asbestos. It applies to you if you have maintenance and repair responsibilities
for non-domestic premises either through a contract or tenancy agreement or
because you own the premises. The duty requires you to manage the risk from
asbestos by:
- finding out if there is asbestos in the premises, its amount and what condition it is in
- presuming materials contain asbestos, unless you have strong evidence that they do not
- making and keeping up to date a record of the location and condition of any Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) or presumed ACMs in your premises
- assessing the risk from the ACMs
- preparing a plan that sets out in detail how you are going to manage the risk from any ACMs
- taking the steps needed to put your plan into action
- reviewing and monitoring your plan and the arrangements made to put it in place; and
- providing information on the location and condition of any ACMs to anyone who is liable to work on or disturb it.
Those who are not duty-holders, but control access to the premises, have to co-operate with the duty-holder in managing the asbestos.
Delegation of work, not responsibilities
Although the duty-holder may appoint a competent person to carry out all or part of the work, the duty-holder will have to be involved in the final assessment of the potential risk. It is the duty-holder who knows how the premises are used and what disturbance is likely to occur and, so, the duty-holder must be actively involved.
Most importantly, no matter what duties the duty-holder delegates, or to whom, the responsibility for complying with the Regulations remains with the duty-holder.
If appropriate, the duty-holder may chose to do their own inspection, however, for more complicated buildings, the duty-holder should choose to employ a suitably trained person to do a survey of the premises to identify ACMs. Should the duty-holder chose not to carry out their own inspection, then they must chose the person or organisation who is going to do it for them carefully.
The duty-holder must ensure that the person or organisation that is going to represent them:
- provides evidence of their training and experience in such work;
- will carry out the survey in accordance with the HSE guidance MDHS100 Surveying, sampling and assessment of asbestos-containing materials; and
- has evidence of suitable liability insurance
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has developed an accreditation scheme for organisations which do asbestos surveys. UKAS already has a separate accreditation scheme for sampling and analysis of asbestos in materials. An accredited company is likely to employ suitably trained people for these types of work. But you should check what the firm is accredited for, as some will only be qualified to do surveys and take samples and others only to analyse samples (this will be detailed on the UKAS website address www.ukas.com).
For additional information about how G & L Consultancy may be able to help duty-holders with their Duty to Manage, either:
- go to the Asbestos Management page,
- go to the Contact Us page to see which of our experts is best located to help you; or,
- send us an email
