15 April 2024
The Health and Safety Inspectorate (HSI) has recently received several complaints of unsafe practices in roof cleaning work.
These practices included entirely inappropriate measures for controlling the risk to safety from working at height.
In one case, the dutyholder posted pictures of their work on social media.
In this instance, there were no measures in place:
- to prevent or mitigate a person falling
- to prevent the pressure washer falling from the roof
Their substandard control measures were the result of an unsuitable and insufficient risk assessment process allied to an equally sub-standard safe work method statement.
A Prohibition Notice was served on this dutyholder for all work across Jersey unless and until appropriate control measures were put in place to adequately control the risk to safety from work at height.
All roof cleaning work qualifies as construction work as defined in the Health and Safety (Management in Construction) (Jersey) Regulations 2016. Therefore, such work activities require suitable and sufficient risk assessment and, as work at height is a high-risk activity, the preparation of a safe work method statement prior to work commencing.
The outcome of these should be the identification and implementation of suitable control measures to prevent people and objects from falling, or to mitigate the consequences of a fall.
HSI will not hesitate to take enforcement action where there are immediate risks to the health and safety of employees and others affected by work activities.
HSI has previously produced articles on the required standards for:
Find more information in the following guidance.
Guidance on Contruction (Jersey) Regulations 2016
Management in Construction (Jersey) Regulations 2016
gov.je