New Control of Asbestos Regulations in force from 6 April 2012
This article was produced by Olswang LLP, which joined with CMS on 1 May 2017.
On 6 April 2012 the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (the “2012 Regulations”) came into force, repealing and re-enacting the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 (the “2006 Regulations”) with certain modifications.
The 2006 Regulations were implemented further to an EC Directive (83/477/EEC (amended by Directive 2003/18 EC)) to protect maintenance workers from the risks of asbestos exposure. The 2006 Regulations imposed requirements on employers seeking a licence to undertake works which carried a risk of exposing workers to asbestos but also provided an exemption to these duties where the works were low risk.
The exemption ought only to have applied to works where only “non-friable materials” (material in which fibres are bound and so less readily released into the air) were handled and where any removal of materials was carried out “without deterioration of non-degraded material”, but the 2006 Regulations did not make the exemption conditional upon these specific requirements. The result was that the exemption was rather broader than it was intended to be.
The 2012 Regulations correct this by expressly including these requirements as conditions for the exemption to apply (mirroring the wording of the Directive), thereby narrowing the scope of works which may benefit from the exemption. Where an exemption may have previously applied under the 2006 Regulations, employers carrying out certain types of low risk, short duration and non-licensed work involving asbestos are now subject to requirements including, the need to notify the work being carried out to the relevant authority (the Health and Safety Executive), ensure workers have medical examinations every three years (with the transition period for this requirement lasting until 30 April 2015) and keep a record for each worker of the type and duration of work carried out involving asbestos.
The requirements in respect of licensable work have not changed and the 2012 Regulations do not change the requirements for carrying out risk assessments, planning work, implementing appropriate control measures and training workers.
