Archive - H&S Issue

kendall17

Hi guys,

By day I work for a firm of accountants.

We have recently moved our archiving facility on site and the practice manager (if you can call him that) has taken it upon himself to sort it all out.

We now have 8 Really Useful 35L boxes stacked on top of each other (about 10foot high in total) in a 2x2 format (around 80 boxes in total which are fairly heavy when full).

The other day a partner of the practice had some of the empty boxes fall on him.

Now the current layout is a huge inconvenience to me as I'll be the main person retrieving the majority of things from the archive and having to move possibly 15 boxes to get to one, but is there grounds for a health and safety problem, afterall the partner proved that the other day and 8 full boxes falling could easily severely injure someone.

I have asked for stacking 3 boxes then having a shelf, 3 boxes shelf and so on but this has fallen on deaf ears as it is fine as it is.

No risk assessments or consultation has taken place with the staff.

Let me know your thoughts please?

ILW

I would just not get too close to them.

dickydonkin

Did you consult with the person who could really help before you posted on here?

I ask because you will get some helpful advice (and some not so like the post above ^^^), however, it can only be remedied by someone in authority in the workplace.

I would suggest you highlight your concerns to a manager and ask for some shelving - dear me, it's cheap enough and easy to assemble and will actually make more space - as well as being safer.

As for risk assessments and the like, well technically there should be but I would prioritise the safe storage of the archived materials.

kendall17

dickydonkin wrote: »

Did you consult with the person who could really help before you posted on here?

I ask because you will get some helpful advice (and some not so like the post above ^^^), however, it can only be remedied by someone in authority in the workplace.

I would suggest you highlight your concerns to a manager and ask for some shelving - dear me, it's cheap enough and easy to assemble and will actually make more space - as well as being safer.

As for risk assessments and the like, well technically there should be but I would prioritise the safe storage of the archived materials.

I spoke with one of the partners, we discussed it and he agreed to bring it up with the practice manager/other partners - it never happend.

The archive was nicely stored at an off-site storage place whilst planning etc took place, so it never came into question. We did have some racking down at the off-site storage, it was left for the storage company to decide what they wanted to do with it (although we did own it) :doh:

JDC14

I work in archiving, and not sure if it's a law, but when we brought plenty out and had boxes around the walls and corridors of our office and just outside of it - we were told no higher than shoulder height as a guideline.

kendall17

JDC14 wrote: »

I work in archiving, and not sure if it's a law, but when we brought plenty out and had boxes around the walls and corridors of our office and just outside of it - we were told no higher than shoulder height as a guideline.

Always thought something like that was advisable. I'm 6 foot 3, some of the girls in the office are about 5 foot 3. The boxes are about 3 inch off the roof.

Fire_Fox

Who is the health and safety officer?

dickydonkin

JDC14 wrote: »

I work in archiving, and not sure if it's a law, but when we brought plenty out and had boxes around the walls and corridors of our office and just outside of it - we were told no higher than shoulder height as a guideline.

Which is fine - but problems could arise (sods law) if the box of archived material you need is at the bottom of the pile which could destabilise the other stacks when you attempt to access it.

Shelving would go some way to resolve the problem - and don't forget the potential fire risk in respect of blocking escape routes and the additional fuel that a load of stacked paper would provide for a fire.

Who is the health and safety officer?

I dare suggest that this 'poison chalice' has been given to the HR bod who will have no formal H&S qualifications.