Back in the Workplace: Are Your Facilities Ready?

SOCOTEC is committed to ensuring that clients’ facilities are safe, compliant and fully functional in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, having developed its ‘Business Ready’ recovery programme to cut through the noise and provide organisations with a series of support packages and the peace of mind that their staff can safely return to the workplace.

SOCOTEC’s Asbestos Management team offers a range of testing, inspection and compliance services that can help your organisation ensure compliance while getting your facilities back to full capacity. With the ability to address any shortfallings in compliance that may have arisen in the wake of the pandemic while facilities have been under-occupied, SOCOTEC can assist across three key areas:

Statutory Compliance

There is a reasonable chance that your scheduled asbestos inspection or reinspection was due over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and has had to be delayed as a result. With lockdown restrictions gradually beginning to ease, it is prudent for these inspections to be planned and completed to ensure that materials are in a safe and compliant condition. SOCOTEC is well equipped to assist with your asbestos inspection and reinspection requirements as you begin the reoccupation process.

Projects

Essential refurbishment work for your building may also have been delayed as a result of the pandemic. Intrusive surveys should be undertaken prior to any planned building works, which may include general refurbishment works or any major projects that you have planned. SOCOTEC is able to carry out intrusive asbestos refurbishment surveys (UKAS No. 0148), ensuring compliance with Control of Asbestos Regulations (CAR) 2012.

If many of your staff are currently working from home and you are not planning on fully reoccupying your building to full capacity at the moment, you may wish to consider intrusive inspections that could influence future projects while the building remains at low occupancy.

Policy

With staff numbers likely to have altered over the past year, as well as possible changes to named personnel having taken place, it is worth considering whether or not your asbestos management plan requires reviewing and amending in relation to the roles and responsibilities of the assigned parties.

To learn more about how SOCOTEC can help ensure compliance during COVID-19, click here.

Additional services

Given that CAR 2012 requires dutyholders to manage asbestos to prevent or minimise exposure as far as is reasonably practicable, it is essential that both the short and long-term management of asbestos is not overlooked during the ongoing crisis. 

As a leading provider of asbestos management and consultancy services across a wide range of business sectors and property types, SOCOTEC has been able to offer a full suite of asbestos consultancy services throughout the current crisis. This is driven by one of the largest compliments of technical staff in the market, as well as our own in-house UKAS accredited testing laboratories. Services that our Asbestos Management team can deliver include:

• UKAS accredited management/refurbishment/demolition asbestos surveys
• Asbestos sampling and material identification
• Asbestos in soil analysis and full quantification
• Asbestos air monitoring and 4-stage clearance
• Project management of asbestos removal works
• UKATA and CIBSE approved asbestos awareness training
• Enforcement liaison.

Where site visits are required, please note that SOCOTEC staff continue to adhere to social distancing guidelines and safety measures issued by the government at all times. For more information on SOCOTEC’s full range of asbestos services, click here or contact us.

Asbestos Awareness training

While the average number of delegates undertaking or refreshing their UKATA Asbestos Awareness training is currently at a five-year low, it is absolutely crucial that up-to-date knowledge of health and safety guidance and legislation is maintained (as per Regulation 10 of CAR 2012). SOCOTEC’s Asbestos team can deliver face-to-face UKATA Asbestos Awareness training and refresher courses in line with social distancing guidelines, as well as offering virtual classrooms via Microsoft Teams that can be tailored to your business’ individual requirements.

Click here to learn more about the UKATA Asbestos Awareness e-learning course.