HSE
Stakeholder forum: Reviewing Workplace Temperatures Legislation And Guidance
Thursday, 23 July, Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS
Derek Maylor, Co-ord Chair Reports on the event:
At the request of the Secretary of State, HSE has instigated a review of health and safety at work in relation to workplace temperatures to consider the reasons for and against a maximum workplace temperature.
HSE’s Chief Executive, Geoffrey Podger, opened the event. Attending from CWU were Steve Mann and Derek Maylor, other attendees included IOSH, RoSPA, BSC, IIRSM, LRD, business managers and a representative from all the major unions.
Professor Ray Kemp [Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne] opened the event discussing international approaches to the management of workplace temperatures and strengths and weaknesses of the current UK approach from stakeholders’ perspectives. Austria has a max temp of 25 C, Australia no max, Holland max 27-31 C, Germany no max, there is a wide variety.
It was noted early that there is a distinction between thermal comfort and hot health which is a safety risk. Comfort affects ability to concentrate, MSD’s, dry eye etc. which can affect safety whereas hot health causes heat stress, heat exhaustion, dehydration, rashes, burns and does affect health.
There were group discussions these looked at identification of preferred approaches and their likely benefits or costs – but highlighted by HSE that doing nothing is no longer an option.
We noted that the business managers who were quite happy to accept a top temperature level or trigger points were those who already had exceptional workplaces such as bakeries and foundries; they have been managing the issue for many years and have systems of trigger actions already and thus support it across the board. The current Workplace (H,S & W) Regs 1992 lay down temperature under reg 7 as it should be “reasonable”.
It clear that there is a difference between process related heat and environmental related heat. The unions enforced the point that it is not about stopping the job – but getting the job done safely and accept there will be differences between new build and legacy buildings.
Some of the issues raised by the CWU were the change in technologies which have led to extreme temperatures in many telephone exchanges and that systems are there to alleviate this but, for whatever reason, they are widely unworkable. Unless there is a specific target trigger temperature for a manager it may difficult for them to get anything done apart form temporary cooling.
Also such cooling accelerates BT’s carbon footprint as it is electrically driven – it would be better if equipment was distributed / sited better; if heat factor was a part of a purchasing Risk Assessment.
We raised Royal Mail and Telephone Engineers working long hours outside “in the midday sun” but it was generally agreed that most companies are more flexible in this work area and the problems are different to internal workplaces. An offered example was for a company who do provide sun cream in getting workers to use it, similar with head wear. It may be that more workers enjoy being in the hot sun as those who know the risks and it can be just as difficult to address the worker as the manager. However - the main concern / remit here remains internal workplaces where heat is an ongoing issue not an environmental occasional issue.
Legislation and guidance has not kept pace with the changing nature of the workplace – and telephone equipment is the prime example and there can be no logical argument for having a minimum recommended temperature but no maximum
Generally there was clearly a line between the unions [who wanted a top temp limit] and business [who say there's no need]. Most of the inbetweenies [like IOSH] see the need for some sort of trigger with action being required.
What will be the result [in my opinion] will be a HSE recommendation for an ACoP with trigger points for action, for example 27 C in an office for a formal Risk Assessment etc with variants dependant on the workplace; then subsequent trigger temperatures requiring further action and so on.
Whatever the HSE recommendation - the report will be produced in 6 weeks.
It will go to the HSE Board meeting September for ratification. It will then be put to the Rt. Hon. Yvette Cooper MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Lord Bill McKenzie in October. Then it will go to a formal 12 week consultation.
Derek Maylor 24th.July 2009.
safety@cwumswl.org
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