HSE has now confirmed that the ACoP which supports the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 will be removed along with an overhaul of many other ACoPs.
ACoPs are acknowledged to set the benchmark against which HSE judges the provisions made by industry and so have been very useful in the past serving as both a minimum standard and an example of turning legislation into practice.
However, all is not lost. The lost ACoP will be replaced by a new suite of guidance documents including the Health and Safety Made Simple Toolkit and the Health and Safety Toolbox, both of which are present already on the HSE website.
We can also look forward to seeing a new guidance document as the updated HSG65 – ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’ looks likely to be produced sometime late this summer.
So the answer to the question is yes, you are likely to be affected by this change, however, the new guidance promises to be more detailed and explicit in its content. Expect to see samples of documents, risk assessments and similar documents, so although this is a change, it might just be a positive one.
Note: In addition to the above we can expect to see a simplification of the existing 5 documents covering the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 as they are planned to be consolidated into a single document aiding their application, simplicity and, perhaps, their enforcement.
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