Asbestos Management
Educational Sector

We provide a free asbestos compliance review that is confidential and all our recommendations are advisory and non-binding only. 

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The free review will provide you with confirmation that you are achieving your compliance objectives but if this is not the case, it will provide practical guidance and support on what actions are necessary to be able to be compliant with Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations (Duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic buildings).

 

It’s important to emphasise that Regulation 4 is a duty to manage and not a duty to remove asbestos.

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Our compliance  audit process that has been developed has been greatly informed by the HSE report “Management of asbestos in school buildings

2022/23”.

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This report followed 421 inspections and its brief was to review “how schools were meeting their legal duties to manage asbestos effectively”

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The headlines from this report stated:

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• A small number of schools (7%) had significant enough failings in their systems, meaning enforcement notices were required to address them.

 

• Most of these failings related to improvements being needed in their management plans or surveys 

 

• Across the 421 inspection visits, the total number of notices served was 30, which included 2 prohibition notices and 28 improvement notices.

 

• These were across a total of 28 schools, as 1 school was served with 2 prohibition notices, and another was served with 2 improvement notices.

 

• The 28 schools served with a notice also received a letter detailing the action required to achieve compliance. A further 112 schools, among those which were not served a notice, also received a letter, making 140 in total.

 

• Just over 66%  of the schools visited were found to be effectively managing asbestos and required either no further action or verbal advice.

 

Implicitly,  34% are not effectively managing asbestos and if this is extrapolated to the number of schools in the UK, this non compliance position would related to approximately 10,000 schools.

 

The report identified the following areas for improvement included:

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• schools not having an up-to-date survey on site that clearly shows the location of asbestos throughout the estate and highlights any areas not surveyed (which should be presumed to contain asbestos)

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• registers not clearly indicating if remedial action identified during a survey has been completed and records updated;

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• schools not having a clear and easily understandable asbestos management plan in place that is specific to their site;

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• schools not regularly monitoring the condition of asbestos-containing materials;

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• asbestos management plans not having incident procedures for dealing with an unplanned disturbance of asbestos-containing materials, or how to provide information to emergency services who attend sites;

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• school staff not having clear roles and responsibilities for managing asbestos and not having deputies or contingency plans in place to cover for staff absences;

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• schools not ensuring that contractors tendering for work provide risk assessments, method statements, and evidence of asbestos awareness training.

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If you have any concerns regarding your Asbestos Compliance Position, please contact us through the detail on our Contact Page