Clearview South October 2013 - Issue 143 | Page 14

industrynews FIRST AID GUIDANCE AND REGULATION CHANGES From 1st October 2013, the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 will be amended, to remove the requirement for HSE to approve first aid training and qualifications. The changes are part of HSE’s work to make it easier for businesses and other users to understand how to comply with health and safety law, whilst maintaining standards. They apply to businesses of all sizes and from all sectors. Andy McGrory, HSE’s policy lead for First Aid, said: “From October, HSE will no longer approve first-aid training and qualifications. The guidance documents clarify what the law requires and provide practical help to businesses in assessing and understanding their first aid needs. Where a first aider is required, the guidance documents make it clear that the employer is free to select a training provider who is best suited to those needs. “We have taken onboard comments and suggestions that we have received through our public consultations on the changes and from extended stakeholder discussions and business input to ensure the guidance provides everything an employer will need to manage their first aid requirements.” The legal requirement for employers to ensure they make adequate provision for first aid, in accordance with their first aid needs assessment, will remain unchanged. ‘The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981’, ‘Regulations and Guidance (L74)’ and ‘Selecting a first-aid training provider (GEIS3)’ are now available on the HSE website. www.hse.gov.uk ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL YEAR Business Micros has recorded another impressive year of trading, with a further increase in its customer base and a marked increase in the number of customers choosing to rent rather than buy its software. Graeme Bailey, Managing Director of Business Micros, says that the Company’s performance reflects the mood of the industry as a whole with fabricators reviewing their suppliers and ensuring that they have the right partners in place to help take them forward into the recovery. He says: “We are seeing an increasing number of enquiries from companies who can see opportunities ahead and want to be sure that their software supplier has both the capacity and ‘They feel secure’ the resources to help them make the most of those. “They tell us that they feel secure with Business Micros as their partner, particularly since we are currently expanding our team and investing even more in programming to develop our systems further.” He adds: “Customers who enter rental agreements with us get automatic upgrades on their software, they get free access to our support team and they get to keep their capital for other types of investment.” Further information on the EvoNet software is available at www.businessmicros.co.uk Cut red tape to boost house building Moves to cut red-tape by streamlining housing standards would be a major boost to Britain’s small and mediumsized house builders, and will help to increase the supply and choice of new homes needed to address the growing housing crisis, says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB). As the Government launched its Housing Standards Review consultation process, Beatrice Orchard, Head of Communications at the FMB, 14 OCT 2013 responded: “The proliferation of an array of local, national and voluntary standards has added unnecessary complexity and cost to the house building industry in recent decades. These costs have a disproportionate impact on smaller firms and smaller developments.” Orchard continued: “It is essential we continue to bear down on unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy, to encourage more SME developers to bring new homes to market.” Orchard added: “There is no reason why this should entail any reduction in the standards of new homes being built; indeed clearer and more consistent national standards will be a huge improvement on the current complex system. We would also welcome steps to incorporate any nationally described standards proposed by the review into Building Regulations in future.” www.fmb.org.uk To read more, visit www.clearview-uk.com