safety at work

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 5:28 pm

hi, i work at a large retail site in preston. the camera system is very bad....we have one dome 360 cam which is ok but the rest are static ones.
there are two parts to the site, one is leisure which we have one domed the rest are static cams which pick up nothing, the other side which is the retail side has no cameras at all....should the guards be walking around that part on thier own without cams...it can get a bit rough during the day and thier is only one guard on and one at night....can anyone give me some advice on this subject please Confused

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:56 pm

Hi Crane and welcome to our community website.
This is a toughie actually but lets see if I can go though it logically....

Their is no onus on anyone to install or operate a CCTV system on the premises, so I guess we can forget about that bit (for now anyway).

There is however an obligation on the premises owners part to ensure that anyone visiting or working (including contracted workers) on their premises, is not at risk of injury 'as far as is reasonably practicable' under general health and safety law (Health & Safety at Work Act).

There is also an obligation to your employer under H&S law to ensure that same thing.
What normally happens is, the premises owner and certainly your employer are required by law to carry out a 'risk assessment' - the purpose of this is to ensure the working environment is 'safe' - that the risk of injury or death is minimised to an acceptable level.

Of particular interest to us is the requirement of your employer to carry our a 'task based risk assessment'. This means exactly what it sounds like! For every task you have to do, your employer has to examine that task and look for potentia for harm which you might suffer whilst carrying out that task.
Patrolling at night would certainly fall into a 'risk' category no matter where you were.

So we have established that your employer would need to assess the risk to its employees whilst on patrol at night. Would it be 'reasonably practicable' for them to make the premises owner spend a heck of a lot of money fixing up and antiquate CCTV system?
Probably not!
Has the site got a high incidence of assults on officers at night so we can argue that CCTV surveillance is 'a must have'?
Probably not!

However, we have not done yet....
It WOULD be 'reasonable practicable' to ensure the employees are not at risk of slips, trips and falls by ensuring adequate lighting is available, that the ground is an even surface etc.

Your query was mostly concerned with day time patrols and it would be a very hard argument to make for camera's but I'll come back to this post later (ran out of time).

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 7:47 pm

thanks for that..........

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 6:37 am

I can understand your concerns if the local area is a bit dodgy but without any history of assualts or other problems, I think we would be hard pressed to make a case on H&S grounds for NOT patrolling in those area's.
Having said that, there is always a good case for ensuring you have effective communications to some one else if you need assistance and of course ensuring that 'someone else' can actually respond to calls for assistance.

It might be a good idea to drop a hint or two at the companies management or supervision team "employers have to make the results of task based risk assessments available to all employers - would you mind if I saw a copy please"

Now we have just about exhausted the H&S angle, lets try something else.....

A camera system used in a public area... are they aware that operators will very shortly need to be licenced to operate this equipment?
Is the company (premises owner) aware they have to be registered under the Data Protection Act ?
Actually there is a database available that we can check but you can always try the sneaky approach by asking;
"a member of the public got their purse snatched (or something similar) and has just approached you to find out who the Data Controller is so they can obtain a copy of any video footage they might have - you told them you did not know but in case a similar situation arises in the future, could they find out please", if they have a blank look in thier eye's then are not registered.
Do they have signs erected warning people that they are under surveillance?

Such question will do you no harm but might just get them thinking about the camera's and how ineffective they are.