If you have ever looked at some of the questions on a method statement and risk assessment, most of them are common sense.  They force the person writing the report to think about and anticipate accidents and to act before something tragic happens.

It should be a no brainer in so many cases, but still it seems we leave the work undone and so we have the inevitable result that there is an increase in fines for H&S failings.

The largest UK fines for health and safety incidents have increased substantially in the past year, with some of the biggest brands in business having to pay millions of pounds for failing to control serious risks to employees and the public.

There were:

• 2016 ~ 19 fines of £1m or more – the largest being £5m
• 2015 ~ 3 fines of £1m or more
• 2014 ~ None

These shocking statistics are not the result of greater carelessness, but of legislation to address accidents which could be avoided.  The introduction of new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences was brought on 1 February 2016.

Not every fine in 2016’s largest 20, involved a fatality, with the guidelines deeming that it is enough for a company’s health and safety failings to have caused injury, or put people at substantial risk of injury or death to warrant a penalty.

So, it seems health and safety procedures are just common sense, but most of all it is common sense to write the method statements and do the risk assessments.

Further to previous blogs regarding leasehold reforms mentioned in the White Paper, the government is committed to promote fairness and transparency for the growing number of leaseholders.

One of the reforms on the table is labelled 4.38 and reads as such:

“We will consider further reforms through the consultation to improve consumer choice and fairness in leasehold, and whether and how to reinvigorate commonhold.  We will also work with the Law Commission to identify opportunities to incorporate additional leasehold reforms as part of their 13th programme of Law Reform, and will take account of the work of the All-party Parliamentary Group on Leasehold and Commonhold.”

Commonhold as it is known in the rest of the world is the home ownership system which does not include a landlord who charges ground rent or who has the power after a period determined in the lease, to increase that ground rent, sometimes doubling the amount.

Although mention is made here of commonhold and to the clear majority of those whose homes are owned by this model, is likely to be the future, there is no aggressive action in government to make this the norm.

Leasehold continues to be popular especially with property developers because it provides continuing finance for future developments.  It also makes the landlord responsible to appoint agents and oversee the efficient management of their properties.  Legislation is continuously being passed to improve standards in this management and has been successful to varying degrees.

The main focus of government housing policy is about increasing the supply of new homes.  When and indeed if, this ever eases, only then is it likely that commonhold will become a ‘product’ which comes into greater demand.

  As previously mentioned in our blog about the importance of fire safety, Southwark Council pleaded guilty at a hearing in February to all four counts brought by the London Fire Brigade.  They were guilty of:

• Failure to carry out risk assessments
• Failure to take precautions to prevent fire spreading and protect escape means
• Failure to take fire precautions to protect employees and non-employees
• Failure to ensure the building had a suitable system of maintenance

One observation made after the fire was that a timber staircase which cut across general use corridors were weakly boxed in and provided negligible protection and seriously compromised the escape route.  Also missing were fireproof strips or seals on the doors and suspended ceilings did not have cavity barriers.

How tragic that a thorough assessment by a company like http://www.cardinus.com would have exposed these failings and enabled the council to take necessary preventative action.

In the end the fire was caused by a piece of electrical equipment and spread up the outside of the building into a flat above and out into the corridor.  Burning debris fell onto several floors below, starting separate fires.

6 deaths a £270 000 fine, and £300 000 court costs later, will we in this business learn!

  If you are frustrated by the slow pace of the building of affordable homes, there is a consultation you can become involved in to make your voice heard. A white paper on this subject has been followed up by consultation on views about planning and affordable housing policies intended to speed up the development of large scale, purpose built privately rented housing.

One of the main proposed measures is encouraging an alternative approach to affordable housing for build to rent called Affordable Private Rent (sometimes called Discounted Market Rent.

If you have a view, the consultation ends on 1^st May. Full details are here.

 Service charge monies held in trust are protected by the FSCS and guidance on claims was put out in April 2009 by the Communities and Local Government Dept. It said:

“Whilst any claim would be dependent on the circumstances and evidence available at the time of the claim, the FSCS would generally expect to treat the tenants not the landlord as being individually entitled to the protection available for that proportion of the money in the account to which they were entitled by statutory trust. This would mean each tenant being eligible for a maximum of £50 000 compensation to cover the loss of their particular proportion of the deposited funds.”

The protection limit has been increased from 30^th January 2017, to £85 000.

Insurance commissions with Landlords are still skimming 40-50% of premiums.  When is this going to be made illegal?

Ground rent abuses with builders of flats increasing the starting levels of ground rent and frequency of reviews.

Leasehold houses with unfair practices still happening of selling houses as leasehold instead of freehold and leases being drafted with ground rents doubling every 10 years. Promises for the freehold to become available for sale were misleading as these were sold to companies specialising in freeholds and the price greatly inflated.  These houses then become unsaleable.  This gives the industry a terrible name.

LEASE

Given these practices, the much used and respected leasehold advisory service is to become self funding in 4 years if the government has it way.  Is this practical and will it leave leaseholders without an impartial watchdog to advise them? At the LEASE conference the housing minister said that LEASE would continue without needing to be self funding until 2020.

  Political correctness has long been the reason we all feel unable to say things which could be construed in an offensive way.  But what if we use political correctness with health and safety as the excuse to promote something as legislative correctness?

Two recent examples of a landlord and an insurer trying to use health and safety as an excuse to impose their rules on tenants came to light.

One was an insurer wanting their policy holder to establish a key holding service with a professional security company for intruder alarms, and told them it was to comply with health and safety regulations. The HSE said this may be good policy, but it is not part of regulations.

The second was a local council banning a tenant from using a mains extension lead from within his house, using health and safety reasons.  Again the HSE said not.  Instead it was suggested tenants are referred to available guidance from Electrical Safety First or the Local Government Fire Safety in shared or rented accommodation.

Bottom line is neither the insurer or the council was asking for something that was not good practice or common sense.  Did they think they were being politically correct to cite health and safety instead of being honest?  They could have said this was a policy and the way they worked as best practice.  Citing H&S legislation to force policies they wanted, is dishonest and amounts to abuse of a client.

 Southwark Council are in the dock with 22 charges brought against them by the London fire brigade after a fire in 2009 at Lakanal House caused the death of 6 people 3 women and 3 children.

Is it ever acceptable to take a casual approach to fire health and safety when so many lives can be destroyed?

Among the issues which crop up every time there is a fire, is having blankets and clothes left too close to or on top of electrical heaters. Sometimes the heaters are placed too close to armchairs, sofas or beds.  In 2016, 142 fires were caused by electrical heaters with 31 injuries and 1 death. Advice from the assistant commissioner for Fire Safety at London Fire Brigade is “ensure portable heaters are standing upright and kept well away from clothes, curtains or furniture.”

Over two thirds of fatal fires involving heaters are caused by clothing or furniture being too close.

The technical and practical hurdles companies face in calculating their gender pay gap is about to become a reality when the report on the topic becomes mandatory for many businesses.

ACAS has teamed up with the Government Equalities Office to publish the guidance and all employers with a head count of 250 or more will have to provide a salary snapshot of male and female employees, covering mean averages, bonuses and more.

The pressures on HR departments for this is challenging for they must produce formulas which prove not only how, but why they use the calculations they do to report on and by extension, ensure parity in pay for both sexes.

At last count, we are told there are 1 million young people out of work in the United Kingdom and that despite this figure we are still accepting low skilled workers from other countries to fill some of our country’s vacancies.

At 2 Rivers Property Management , this seems like madness and begs the question of how much the country’s businesses, both large and small are willing to invest in our young people.

From 6 April 2017, i.e. the new tax year, employers operating in the UK with an annual pay bill of more than 3 million will pay the apprenticeship levy.  For levy-paying employers, guidance for accessing funds raised in levy can be found here.

If you are a non-levy paying employer 90% of your apprenticeship training and assessment costs in England will be paid for by the government. 90%! Is this not reason for all of us to be taking a young person, in their chosen career, under our wing to help them get the training and work experience we all need to get a start in life?

Advice from the IRPM is as follows:

1. Start planning how you could use apprenticeships in your organisation.
2. Read the updated guide for employers on how you will pay the levy (if required), access the digital system and pay for apprenticeships in future.
3. Use the online tool for employers to calculate your levy contribution, begin to consider your training, and estimate what you will have available to spend on apprenticeships.
4. Sign up for more information – Register for web alerts to receive notification when new information on apprenticeships is published.

If you have had a bad experience with apprenticeships the government has set out a programme of reform. To underpin these, the Institute of Apprenticeships will be established as an independent body to act as the guarantor of the integrity of the apprenticeship system, with a mandate to assure quality and provide objective advice on future funding for apprenticeship training. The Institute will advise on the maximum level of government funding available and is expected to commence it’s work in the summer.

Not yet mentioned, one word to young people.  For some years, you have been led to believe that a good career begins with a university degree.  You may be interested to visit Mike Rowe’s facebook page.  This guy has made the wise observation that there is no need for you to get into the huge debt of a university degree, when a paying apprenticeship will serve just as well if not better if the skills and gifting you have does not need a degree to be developed.  Debt is not cool, if you got into it just because well meaning adults told you, you need a degree to be a success.