Legal Register Service
HASTAM has developed a cost effective solution to an issue that should be of major concern to all Directors and Senior Health and Safety Professionals - how can you be assured that your organisation is effectively complying with all relevant Health and Safety legislation?
It is HASTAM’s experience that few organisations have a clear picture of the extent to which they are complying with the health and safety legislation relevant to them. There are three main reasons for this. First, few organisations have a comprehensive and up-to-date list of the legislation that applies to them. Second, there is an incomplete identification of all the requirements imposed by particular items of legislation and third, there is no systematic measurement of the extent to which the organisation is complying with relevant legislation.
Since it is necessary to comply fully with all relevant legislation the typical circumstances just described are obviously unsatisfactory. The only real solution is to have in place a procedure that allows the senior management of an organisation to assure themselves that compliance with legislation is being effectively managed.
HASTAM has developed a suite of products and services that enable this effective management. We offer you an integrated, flexible, solution that can be tailored to meet your specific requirements. In outline the available products and services are:
The Legal Register
| Part 1 | Preparation of a comprehensive and up-to-date list of the health and safety legislation that applies to your organisation, that is, your Legal Register. |
| Part 2 | The provision of quarterly updates to ensure that you can keep your Legal Register up-to-date. |
| Part 3 | An annual review of your Legal Register to check that information has not inadvertently been deleted or corrupted |
| Part 4 | An annual external audit of your compliance with the health and safety legislation that applies to your organisation and your use of the Register |
The CHASE Legal Module
| Part 1 | Preparation of a set of monitoring and audit questions to match the legislation in your Legal Register |
| Part 2 | The provision of quarterly updates to ensure that you can keep your Legal Module up-to-date |
| Part 3 | An annual review of your Legal Module to check that information has not inadvertently been deleted or corrupted |
| Part 4 | An annual external audit of your compliance with the health and safety legislation that applies to your organisation and your use of CHASE |
The table above demonstrates the range of products services we offer to help you build and maintain your organisation’s management of legal compliance. The notes which follow describe the products and services in more detail.
Legal Register Services
The four services on offer enable you to set up and maintain a list of all the health and safety legislation relevant to your organisation, keep it up-to-date and assure you that this is being done effectively. The services can also assist you in effectively monitoring and measuring compliance.
The Legal Resister service HASTAM has developed provides a suite of services that keeps you on top of the task. The first service involves a highly experienced HASTAM consultant taking relevant personnel from your organisation through a comprehensive list of the health and safety legislation in force. There are more than 500 pieces of legislation that might be relevant but on the basis of an initial discussion we screen out any specialist legislation that would not be relevant. When we have agreed with you which of the remaining legislation is relevant we prepare and supply you with an electronic copy of all the titles of all the relevant legislation and a summary of the key requirements of all the legislation on the list. This is your Legal Register.
Unfortunately, however, legislation changes, which creates the need for the second service, the provision of updates. HASTAM monitors all published legislation, identifies health and safety legislation, and obtains details of all new and revised health and safety legal requirements. On a quarterly basis, subscribers to the update service are sent details of required changes to their Legal Register or, if they wish of all changes to health and safety legislation in the past quarter.
The third aspect of the service provides for an annual review of your Legal Register. This involves you sending a copy of your Legal Register to HASTAM so that we can check it against our master copies. By doing this we can identify lost or corrupted information and incorrect information which has been added inadvertently.
The fourth service offers you an external audit of compliance. This service is carried out by HASTAM consultants who visit your premises and carry out an audit of your compliance with an agreed sample of the legislation in your Legal Register. This service thus provides you with an external assessment of your degree of compliance with the sample of legislation audited and reviews your use of the register.
In keeping with HASTAM’s philosophy of supplying you with only what you require, the services just described are available separately. However, we strongly recommend that, where a HASTAM service is not being used, there are robust checks on how this requirement is being managed internally.
CHASE Legal Compliance Module
These products and services enable you to monitor and measure your compliance with the legislation in your Legal Register. This measurement would fully satisfy the BS OHSAS 18001 requirement for evaluating compliance with legislation. You can also have this compliance externally audited by HASTAM.
HASTAM has well respected software, CHASE, for use in measuring compliance. In association with the software there are sets of questions, known as modules, which are used to measure compliance with, for example, BS OHSAS 18001 or particular items of health and safety legislation. The legal module services are based around CHASE and HASTAM’s existing Legal Module.
There are four main services.
- Tailoring HASTAM’s Legal Module to match the legislation in your Legal Register. Typically this would involve removing items of legislation from HASTAM’s very comprehensive Legal Module. Occasionally we also have to prepare a set of additional questions to meet specialised requirements. The output from this tailoring is your own Legal Compliance Module.
- Update service. On a quarterly basis, subscribers to the update service are sent details of required changes to their Legal Module. Typically this involves additional or revised question sets needed to satisfy changes in legal requirements.
- Annual review service. This involves you sending a copy of your Legal Module to HASTAM so that we can check it against our master Legal Module. By doing this we can identify lost or corrupted information and incorrect information which has been added inadvertently.
- External audit of compliance. This service is carried out by HASTAM consultants who visit your premises and carry out an audit of your compliance with an agreed sample of the legislation in your Legal Register. They then compare their findings with the information recorded in your Legal Module. This service thus provides you with both an external assessment of your degree of compliance and an assessment of the accuracy of your internal measurement of compliance.
In keeping with HASTAM’s philosophy of supplying you with only what you require, the services just described are available separately. However, we strongly recommend that, where a service is not being used, there are robust checks on how the missing service is being managed.