Asbestos: the duty to manage during refurbishment

The duty to manage

The duty holder is the owner, or the occupier where a lease makes them responsible for repair and maintenance. Where responsibility is shared, all parties share the duty to the extent of their obligations. The duty applies to non domestic premises, including the common parts of blocks of flats.

The duty has five parts: find out whether asbestos is present and in what condition, presume materials contain asbestos unless there is strong evidence otherwise, keep an up to date record, assess the risk of exposure, prepare and act on a written management plan, and provide the information to anyone liable to disturb the material.

Survey findings must reach the people doing the work, which normally means the construction phase plan.

Management survey versus refurbishment and demolition survey

A management survey supports the day to day management of asbestos in a building in normal occupation. It is largely non intrusive and locates material that could be disturbed during ordinary use and maintenance.

A refurbishment and demolition survey is fully intrusive. It is destructive by design, involves opening up the structure, and is carried out in areas that are vacated for the purpose. It is required before any work that will disturb the fabric, and it must be specified to match the scope of the planned works. Asking for a survey without giving the surveyor the drawings and the scope is the most common cause of a survey that turns out to be useless on the day.

An uncontrolled release is a dangerous occurrence, so check whether it is RIDDOR reportable the same day.

Who can survey and who can remove

Surveyors should be competent and, in practice, accredited to ISO 17020 or hold personal certification. Analysts carrying out four stage clearance should be accredited to ISO 17025. Check the accreditation scope covers the type of survey you are commissioning.

Work with the highest risk materials, principally sprayed coatings, lagging, insulating board in many circumstances and any work where fibre release is likely to be significant, is licensable and must be done by a licensed contractor with fourteen days notification to the enforcing authority. Some lower risk work is notifiable non licensed work, which requires notification, medical surveillance and record keeping without a licence. The remainder is non licensed work, which still requires training, controls and disposal as hazardous waste.

Training duties

Regulation 10 requires that anyone liable to disturb asbestos during their work receives suitable information, instruction and training. That covers a vast population beyond asbestos specialists.

• Asbestos awareness training for trades likely to encounter it, including electricians, plumbers, joiners, heating engineers, roofers, telecoms and general maintenance staff.
• Non licensed work training for those who will actually work on lower risk materials.
• Licensed work training for licensed operatives, refreshed annually.

If asbestos is found mid job

Stop work immediately and do not attempt to clean up. Prevent access to the area, keep people out and away from any debris, and leave any disturbed material undisturbed. Report it to the site manager and the duty holder.

Arrange for a competent person to assess the material and, if needed, sampling and analysis. Record who may have been exposed and for how long. If exposure occurred, that may be a reportable dangerous occurrence, and any diagnosed asbestos related disease is separately reportable under RIDDOR. Keep the exposure record for forty years.

Records that clients ask for

Principal contractors and clients increasingly require the asbestos register and the refurbishment survey to be issued with the pre construction information, and will not release the site without them. Under CDM 2015 the client must provide pre construction information, and asbestos information is precisely what that regulation contemplates.

Keep the register live. Re inspect known asbestos containing materials at least annually, record any change in condition, and update the plan after every removal or encapsulation. A register dated five years ago on a building that has since been refitted is not a register, it is a liability.

Common questions

Does the duty to manage apply to houses?

Not to private dwellings themselves, but it does apply to the common parts of flats and to any non domestic part such as a shared plant room.

Is an asbestos survey needed for a building built after 2000?

Asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999. For buildings constructed after 2000 a survey is not normally required, but check for later imported materials and earlier refurbishment materials.

Who pays for the refurbishment survey?

It is normally the client's duty as part of pre construction information. Contractors should confirm in writing that it exists before pricing intrusive work.

Related guides

• construction phase plan
• it is RIDDOR reportable