The final stages of agreeing the text for the revision of the PPE Directive, which originally came into force in 1989, are now well under way. The PPE Regulation is the subject of three-way negotiations in Europe between the Parliament, Council and Commission, and it is just possible that they will complete their work in time for it to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union, known as the ‘OJ’, in September, a few months ahead of the expected timetable.
Shortly after its publication in the OJ it will become part of UK safety legislation. However the current Directive will remain in force for a while as there will be a two-year transition period before the Regulation is operational. This will allow all interested parties time to familiarise themselves with its requirements and prepare for any changes that are necessary. There will then be a further year during which both the Directive and the Regulation can be used, and only after this third year will the current Directive be repealed.
So it looks like you will be able to choose to work to the new Regulation from late in 2017, and it will be fully applicable, with the current Directive gone, by the latter part of 2018.
The British Safety Industry Federation has liaised continuously throughout this process with the UK Government’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to ensure that the comments and proposals of BSIF members are communicated clearly. BIS has represented UK interests in the negotiations by all member states at the Commission, and has expressed gratitude for the input from our members. A BIS official highlighted that this support proved extremely valuable in providing opinions from the safety industry, which aided in formulating their approach to the European Commission working group meetings.
In addition, the BSIF joined with representatives from the European Safety Federation (ESF) to meet on several occasions with the lead rapporteur of the European Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Working Group, which formulated the European Parliament’s proposals for the new text, and BSIF proposals were also included when the ESF met with the current Presidency responsible for the introduction of the new Regulation.
As a result of these activities many of our member’s proposals have been adopted in the amendments proposed by the Commission, by the Parliament, and also by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL).
As for information flowing in the other direction, the BSIF has kept its members fully abreast at every stage of the changes that have been proposed and how implementation of the Regulation will affect their businesses. There are a number of significant changes, and BSIF members are well prepared. If you want to learn more about how it will affect your business, talk to the BSIF.
For more on PPE, read our PPE Regulation and Buyer’s Guide
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3 years to change the PPE regs but the CDM 2015 regs change over a bank holiday weekend with a 6 month transition for projects already ‘begun’. Maybe there is no rush now the election is over?
Yea but, no but, yea, you see there needs to be proper consultation like what there has been on the NEW EU MSD Directive that has taken 25 years to be reviewed, consulted upon and then opposed by employers and further delayed until after the EU elections last year and now UK elections have also come and gone this year and still no news of a likely schedule for releasing the shed load of occupational health stuff including MSD Directive left in a dark corner somewhere in European filing cabinets !!!
In the mean time the debilitating symptoms of Screen Fatigue or Computer Vision Syndrome continue to affect somewhere between 58% and 72% of user operators as the “chain of causation” remains unmitigated and the myth that the resulting harm and injuries are nothing more than “temporary” let alone shifting the blame onto the negligence of the user operator to comply with ineffective ‘current regulations’.
Unfortunately, the current UK regulations have never done what it says on the tin, the 1993 DSE Reg’s avoids any “risk assessment” of the display screen equipment ergonomics like, you know, the display screen interface other than to suggest that if the display screen interface is suboptimal then it’s the user operators fault for “failing to accommodate sufficient adaptation” in order to cope or tolerate the degree of work related stress fatigue and/or for having poor visual acuity that just requires some token PPE in terms of a corrective prescription glasses however ineffective they, the glasses, prove to be.
Appreciating any employer does not wish to increase their burden of compliance with further occupational health legislation, of any kind, I cannot understand why any employer would prefer to do nothing by continuing to accept the cost of doing business, on average, a 20% or 33 days per annum lost productivity or the cost of 1 in 5 DSE user operators when by ensuring their DSE was appropriately calibrated or adapted for the user, rather than the other way around, they could increase productivity by 20% – doh
As an aside from the performance / productivity benefits of mitigating, even preventing, Screen fatigue and/or CVS the positive effects of improving wellbeing will significantly reduce the incidents of increased error rates due to fatigue and other repetitive stress type mishaps (the hazards of attention deficit slip and trip injuries) to, so called minor temporary eye and headaches and insidious levels of cognitive overload and the percentage of employees complaining of WULD’s and MSD’s.