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Thread: Designation of a Health and Safety Representative

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    Email problem MadJan's Avatar
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    Designation of a Health and Safety Representative

    Hi All,

    I need to appoint a Health and Safety representative, as per the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Is there some kind of template that i can use as a guide to draw one up?

    Thanks.

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    Gold Member Martinco's Avatar
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    I am not sure exactly what you require, is it training for the person you have chosen ? What guide is it you need ?
    Martin Coetzee
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Much like Martin, I think.

    Are we talking about appointing a safety representative or drafting a safety plan?

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    Email problem MadJan's Avatar
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    Hi
    Actually i just needed to know how to draw up a letter that says I appoint Mr ABC as safety officer/representative to carry out monthly checks, etc,.
    We are SAP Consultants, and we are doing some SAP work for Company A, we were informed that we will have to appoint someone as a safety representative blah blah blah. But according to the Occupational Health and SAfety Act, there has to be 1 appointed officer for every 20 employees. We have but just 1 person on site carrying out the SAP work.


    Phew...hope i havent confused you guys.

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    Email problem MadJan's Avatar
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    Sorry, i should have been clearer in my initial post.

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    A basic appointment letter will do just fine, All you have to do is specify his/ her job function and that would be good enough. However make sure your safety file is in good order and keep it up to date. Also I know for a fact that most safety officers like to sit in an office all day. That is BS...

    Make sure that you have an “Active report system or matrix” build into your safety file, which insures that the officer is running around doing their thing. Get a mini-risk assessments system going and make sure your safety officer collects and check the mini risk assessment. Also a risk assessment needs to be done every time something changes. In the end it is worth it all if someone gets hurt then you and your worker’s back is covered.
    peace is a state of mind
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    We hit this snag quite often. Small companies often don't have enough staff to be required to have a safety officer, safety policy, safety meetings etc. But when that small company does work for a company that is big enough, you get sucked into the whole rigmarole.

    What you need to do is appoint someone as the company's safety representative for work on that site. Normally the highest ranking person actually performing work on the site is the best nominee.

    What fascinates me in this dance is the issue of qualification. As I recall there's some level of qualification that a safety officer has to have in a larger company. This qualifiication of a staff member isn't required of smaller companies. Or in instances like this is it a requirement?

    In theory regulatory red tape is supposed to be much reduced for small business. In practice it just doesn't always work out that way.
    Last edited by Dave A; 24-Jan-11 at 02:02 PM.

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    There are two ways to work the system. The first is a safety representative with minimum safety training. Basically you as a company will then agree to work under the policies and requirements as provided for you by the safety officer that works for the larger company. Then you only work with their systems make sure you do the required checks and so on and you are done.

    Having a safety officer is handy if you have a lot of workers and if you work requires you to have a dedicated safety file as required, almost something like a specialist job where the employer company’s safety file is not adequate for the job in question. Also A safety officer “a good one” will cover your back and the backs of your workers by implementing the file. So when something bad happen your employees are covered and YOU are covered too. So question the size of the job, the work force and if it is a specialist job or not and work from this point forward. That would be my recommendation.
    peace is a state of mind
    Disclaimer: everything written by me can be considered as fictional.

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    Dave A (24-Jan-11)

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    Email problem MadJan's Avatar
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    Thanks a mill, as usual very helpful and informative

    Much appreciated

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