The regulations have no minimum height requirement for work at height. They include all work activities where there is a need to control a risk of falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.
The Working at Height Regulations 2005 (WAHR) have no minimum height requirement for work at height. They include all work activities where there is a need to control a risk of falling a distance liable to cause personal injury. For example you are working at height if you: are working on a ladder or a flat roof; could fall through a fragile surface; could fall into an opening in a floor or a hole in the ground.
Employers and those in control of any work at height activity must make sure work is properly planned, supervised and carried out by competent people. This includes using the right type of equipment for working at height. Low-risk, relatively straightforward tasks will require less effort when it comes to planning.
Employers and those in control must first assess the risks. The employer should make sure that people with sufficient skills, knowledge and experience are employed to perform the task, or, if they are being trained, that they work under the supervision of somebody competent to do it.
In the case of low-risk, short duration tasks (short duration means tasks that take less than 30 minutes) involving ladders, competence requirements may be no more than making sure employees receive instruction on how to use the equipment safely (eg how to tie a ladder properly) and appropriate training. Training often takes place on the job, it does not always take place in a classroom.
When a more technical level of competence is required, for example drawing up a plan for assembling a complex scaffold, existing training and certification schemes drawn up by trade associations and industry is one way to help demonstrate competence. You are required to keep a record of any inspection for types of work equipment including: guard rails, toe-boards, barriers or similar collective means of protection; working platforms (any platform used as a place of work or as a means of getting to and from work, eg a gangway) that are fixed (eg a scaffold around a building) or mobile (eg a mobile elevated working platform (MEWP) or scaffold tower); or a ladder.
Any working platform used for construction work and from which a person could fall more than 2 metres must be inspected: after assembly in any position; after any event liable to have affected its stability; at intervals not exceeding seven days. Where it is a mobile platform, a new inspection and report is not required every time it is moved to a new location on the same site.
Exemption by the Health and Safety Executive15.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the Health and Safety Executive (“the Executive”) may, by a certificate in writing, exempt—(a)any person or class of persons;(b)any premises or class of premises;(c)any work equipment; or(d)any work activity, from the requirements imposed by paragraph 3(a) and (c) of Schedule 2, and any such exemption may be granted subject to conditions and to a limit of time and may be revoked at any time by a certificate in writing.
(2) The Executive shall not grant any such exemption unless, having regard to the circumstances of the case and in particular to—(a)the conditions, if any, which it proposes to attach to the exemption; and(b)any other requirements imposed by or under any enactments which apply to the case, it is satisfied that the health and safety of persons who are likely to be affected by the exemption will not be prejudiced in consequence of it.
Exemption for the armed forces16.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the Secretary of State for Defence may, in the interests of national security, by a certificate in writing exempt any person or class of persons from any requirement or prohibition imposed by these Regulations in respect of activities carried out in the interests of national security, and any such exemption may be granted subject to conditions and may be revoked by the Secretary of State by a certificate in writing at any time.(2)
The Secretary of State shall not grant any such exemption unless he is satisfied that the health and safety of the employees concerned are ensured as far as possible in the light of the objectives of these Regulations.
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