New Direction For Supervisors
Cast your mind back to last year’s FAAM conference, where one of the most exciting presentations was the Supervisor and Analyst 4SC Workshop. The team, led by Catherine Howard investigated the dark arts of the visual inspection – were supervisors adequately skilled?
More importantly, was there a better way of approaching the key moment in an asbestos enclosure’s life – a more collegiate way? The workshop was a huge success – and whilst it did reveal that Supervisors have a thing or two to teach analysts about the first stages of the process, it became clear that the supervisors had never received any practical training in the visual itself. Further, the HSE had never actively engaged with this skill gap at licence assessment.
From there a lot of hard work by removal contractors, regulators and analysts has resulted in the Asbestos Network’s guidance for supervisors – on doing visuals. The training providers will be designing courses as we speak.
The appendix is in the new mould, where the language is clear, and tells readers what they need to know. This is my favourite paragraph:
Key Point: By signing the Handover Form, the supervisor is undertaking a personal responsibility in discharging the LARCs duties as outlined in this document. Visual inspection by an analyst should be viewed as the final quality check ensuring that a safe environment is passed to end users. If this is not completed correctly and an enclosure that should have failed is passed by the supervisor, the LARC (as an organisation) and the supervisor (personally) may be in breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and subject to formal enforcement action by the regulator.
The workshop, the first in a series of FAAM sponsored research projects has helped change the narrative completely. It goes to show, when industry collaborates, good things come from it.