Competent Person Service

For a small monthly fee we will act as your retained competent health and safety adviser with a subscription to our health and safety competent person service.

Our Competent Person Service packages allows you to keep your overheads down by not employing full-time staff members dedicated to managing health and safety issues, but have that reassurance of being able to ask for all the professional help and support that you require.

Do I need a health and safety consultant?

The truthful answer is, maybe not. No what you expected to hear? To be clear, we are talking about the appointment of an external health and safety consultant or adviser. Honesty and integrity are essential traits in our line of work and we are not going to try and pretend that every business needs to fork out for specialist support.

The law says that every employer must appoint one or more competent persons to assist them in undertaking the measures they need to, in order to comply with health and safety law. You can read more about this in The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

As far as the law is concerned, the preference is actually to appoint a competent person from within your own organisation, but it is accepted that not every small business will have the resources to do this. That’s where we come in; our expert health and safety consultants will represent you as your competent person and be on hand to provide you the support and guidance that you require to comply with your statutory duties.

What is a competent person in health and safety?

You don’t need any formal qualifications such as a degree in Safety and Risk Management, to be appointed as your companies competent person. But what the law does say is that you need sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable you to properly to assist in health and safety matters. The Health and Safety Executive discuss this in their web page entitled Appoint a Competent Person.

A word of caution! If you decide that you do want help from an adviser or consultant external to your organisation, you should make sure that they are suitably qualified and experienced. Remember, you cannot outsource your legal liability for health and safety and so it’s really important for you to ensure that your advisers know what they are doing and help keep you on the right side of the law. The Health and Safety Executive advise that you use the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR), to find certified professionals who have a professional status, valid insurance and are up to date on the latest standards and development. This resource is completely free to search and of course, you’ll find our senior consultants on there.

Our health and safety competent person package

Subscription to our service will provide your organisation with direct access to the expert knowledge and experience of our Chartered Safety and Health Practitioners. We will work with you to review and improve your health and safety policies, procedures and risk management controls, in order to ensure compliance with your statutory duties and more importantly, keep your staff and others safe and free from occupational ill health.

Features of our health and safety competent person service

The features of the service that we offer you will be unique to your needs but below are some of the common features:

• A certificate of engagement of our consultancy as your competent person for health and safety matters. The certificate will be valid for one year from the date of commencement of the service. 
• A CV of your nominated adviser, holding Chartered Safety & Health Practitioner (CMIOSH) status and membership of the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR). Our practitioner’s CV may be presented when submitting bids for work, indicating that they are your companies retained competent person.
• Office hours telephone support for routine health and safety queries. (reasonable use policy applies)
• Email support service for routine health and safety queries and provision of bespoke advice and guidance. (reasonable use policy applies)
•  Advice and updates concerning health and safety legislation and statutory guidance changes. 
• Regular newsletters concerning health and safety matters, relevant to your sector or industry. 
• 30% Discount on our standard consultancy fee where additional or out-of-scope support is required. Our standard fee is £65.00 (+VAT) per hour.

Your Nominated Adviser

Your nominated competent health and safety adviser will be a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH), a Member of the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (MIIRSM) and registered on the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR). They will be suitably qualified and experienced whilst holding Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance.

Cost of our Competent Person Service

Our competent person service package starts from as little as £8.50 per week but is dependent upon the amount of support that you organisation requires.