RISK ASSESSMENTS IN PREGANCY
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that for an employer to have a duty to conduct a risk assessment for a pregnant worker, the following preconditions must be met:

• the employee notifies the employer in writing that she is pregnant;
• the work is of a kind which could involve a risk of harm or danger to the health and safety of the expectant mother or her baby;
• the risk arises from either processes, working conditions or physical, chemical or biological agents in the workplace

In O'Neill v Buckinghamshire County Council the EAT held that there is no general obligation to carry out a risk assessment for a pregnant worker. In discharging its risk assessment obligations, where they arise, there is nothing in the Pregnant Workers Directive or the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 to indicate that a meeting with the worker is required before the obligation to carry out a risk assessment is satisfied. However, an employer must provide the pregnant worker with comprehensive and relevant information on the identified risks to her health and safety.

The EAT also gave tentative support for the proposition that discrimination can result from a failure to carry out a risk assessment for a pregnant worker.

MANSLAUGHTER SENTENCE
Martin and Nathan Winter have been convicted at Lewes Crown Court of manslaughter following the death of two fire crew for a mass explosion at the A Alpha F Fireworks factory in S Sussex and fire which spread to surrounding buildings in 2006. The court heard that the factory owners were experts in handling and storing everyday fireworks and knew that fireworks should be treated as explosives.

PAS 91 AIMS TO CONSOLIDATE ‘PRE-QUALIFICATION' QUESTIONS
The Government's business department (BIS) recently set up a committee to deliver a BSI ‘publicly available specification' (a possible precursor to a Standard) on harmonising pre-qualification questions in construction. Pre-qualification is the process where contractors (often in construction, but also other service providers) are required to show they have various general capabilities before they can tender for work.

PAS AS 91 includes health and safety questions, which Monitor understands will be based on the ‘core criteria' already mentioned in the Approved Code of Practice to the Construction Design and Management Regulations 2007. Other topics include environmental and quality management. The Committee is set to issue a first draft for public consultation this spring. Depending on the output, PAS AS 91 may then influence pre-qualification activity beyond construction.

NERVE DEGENERATION AFTER TEMPORARY HEARING LOSS?
While overexposure to intense noise tends to cause temporary or even permanent hearing loss, post exposure recovery of threshold sensitivity is widely assumed to reverse damage to structures of the inner ear, with no ongoing consequences for hearing.

A new study based on imaging of the inner ear in a mouse shows that acoustic overexposures causing moderate, but reversible, noise threshold elevation can leave cochlear sensory cells intact but cause acute loss of nerve terminals and delayed degeneration of the cochlear nerve. Such degeneration may make it harder to hear in noisy environments and could contribute to tinnitus and other conditions commonly associated with inner ear damage.

These results suggest that noise-induced damage to the ear may have progressive consequences beyond those revealed by conventional noise threshold testing.

S Kujawa and M. Liberman, J. Neurosci. 2009 29 at: www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/45/14077

FIRST FINE UNDER WEEE REGULATIONS
Sita Metal Recycling Ltd has become the first company to be fined under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2006 (WEEE). The company was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £4,456 last month by Norwich Magistrates' Court.

The regulations, introduced in 2006, are designed to make sure that electrical and electronic equipment is either repaired and refurbished and put back on the market or dismantled with parts being recycled or disposed of safely. Producers of the equipment are not required to collect their own WEEE, but htmljoin schemes which do so on their behalf. Such schemes require approval to export.

The company exported treated WEEE but had not been approved to export. Between 1 July 2007 and 31 December 2008, it exported 1,967 tonnes of WEEE. The company was only approved to do so in April 2008.

The company pleaded guilty.

LOWER DOSE RADIATION RISK
Exposure to moderate levels of radiation may increase the rates of heart disease and stroke, but the degree of risk at lower doses is unclear, according to a large study of atomic bomb survivors published on bmj.com

Although the authors cannot be certain that this is a direct (causal) link, their study provides the strongest evidence available to date of an association between circulatory disease and moderate radiation exposure.
www.bmj.com/cgi/doi/10.1136/bmj.b5349

Meanwhile, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC), has looked at the link between ionising radiation and ischaemic heart disease. The IIAC says that occupational estimates in relation to exposure below 0.5 Gray units suggest that risks may only become doubled at levels of exposure which would still be far above those that exist in UK employment practice.

TIME OFF FOR TRAINING
From 6 April 2010 all employees in businesses with 250 employees or more will have the right to request time off to train. BusinessLink has produced guidance on the new right, which will be extended to cover employees in all businesses from 6 April 2011.

To make a request for time to train an individual must:

• be an employee;
• have worked for the employer continuously for at least 26 weeks on the date they make their request.

Some groups, including agency workers, do not have the right to request time to train.

In order for a request for time to train to be a valid request, covered by the legislation, it must be submitted in writing and contain the following information:

• a statement that the application is an application under section 63D Employment Rights Act 1996;
• the subject matter of the proposed training or study;
• where and when the proposed training or study would take place;
• who would provide or supervise it;
• what qualification it would lead to (if any);
• how the employee thinks the proposed training or study would improve their effectiveness in the business and the performance of the business;
• the date of the application;
• the date and method - e.g. email or letter - that the employee's last application (if any) was submitted.

Employees can submit requests in any written form they choose as long as they contain the above information. Employers only have to consider one request from an employee in any 12 month period unless the employee has requested that an earlier request be ignored.

The guidance can be obtained from www.businesslink.gov.uk

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