Yellow folding stand and mop bucket on a polished corridor floor under ceiling lights

Health and Safety at Work Act duties for Bristol clients

8 min read
Rules and permits
A client who hires a cleaning contractor in Bristol has duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, even though the contractor carries its own. This guide explains how those duties are shared and how to put them in the contract.

Clients who commission cleaning in Bristol often assume that the cleaning company carries the whole health and safety burden for the work. That assumption is understandable, but it is not how the law divides the responsibility. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places duties on employers towards their own staff, and on people who control premises or undertakings towards anyone else who may be affected by their work. A cleaning contract therefore creates a shared position, in which the contractor has duties towards its operatives and the client has duties towards the contractor's staff and visitors on site. Understanding that split helps a client decide what to provide, what to ask for and what to monitor.

The general duties under the 1974 Act

Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets out the general duty of every employer towards its employees. The employer must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of its staff at work. That includes safe systems of work, safe equipment, training, information and a safe working environment. The duty is owed by the cleaning company to its own operatives, and it covers the chemicals they use, the equipment they carry and the methods they follow.

Section 3 covers the other side of the relationship. It requires every employer to conduct its undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in its employment who may be affected are not exposed to risks to their health or safety. Since 1 October 2015 the matching duty on a self-employed person in section 3(2) applies only to undertakings of a prescribed description, so a client should not assume that it covers a sole trader cleaner. For a client, this is the provision that matters most. Visitors, tenants, building staff and contractors working alongside the cleaner are all people who might be affected by what happens on the premises. The client, as the person in control of the building, has to think about how the cleaning work affects them. Section 4 adds a separate duty on anyone with control of non-domestic premises to take reasonable measures, so far as is reasonably practicable, to make the premises, the access to them and any plant or substances provided there safe for people who are not their employees but use the premises as a place of work, such as the contractor's cleaners. The text of section 3 of the 1974 Act is short and worth reading in full before a contract is signed.

These duties are not a substitute for each other. A cleaning company cannot discharge its section 3 duty by relying on the client's arrangements, and a client cannot discharge its own duty by relying on the cleaner's method statement. Each party has to do its part.

Sharing hazard and fire information

The practical starting point for a client is to share information about the site. Before the first visit, the client should explain the hazards that exist in the building, including any work by other contractors, equipment that might be unsafe, areas with restricted access, and the building's emergency procedures. Fire arrangements are particularly important. The cleaner should know where the assembly point is, how the alarm is raised, which doors must be kept clear and who the designated fire warden is. A cleaner who has not been shown the fire routes is a risk to themselves and to others.

Information should also flow in the other direction. A cleaning company that uses products or equipment with specific hazards should tell the client what they are and where safety data sheets are kept. The COSHH regulations place duties on the contractor for the products it uses, but the client needs to know about them if the products could affect the building's other occupants. An example is a strong descaler used in a shared washroom that the occupants of the floor above will smell.

A simple induction is often the most effective way to share this information. A short walk round the site, a written site information sheet and a sign-off form for the cleaning supervisor cover most of the essentials. The induction should be repeated when the site changes, for example when a new area is opened or when a building contractor starts work nearby.

Contractor risk assessments and method statements

A cleaning contractor should carry out its own risk assessment for the work it does. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, every employer must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to its employees and to others affected by its work. For a cleaning company, that assessment covers the hazards of the tasks, the chemicals and equipment used, the working environment and the people involved. It also covers hazards that the cleaner may create for others, such as a wet floor left unsigned in a corridor.

A method statement sets out how a particular task will be carried out safely. It is most useful for higher-risk jobs such as working at height, using a powerful floor machine in a busy area, or stripping and sealing a floor while the building is occupied. The HSE's guidance on work at height describes the risks that cleaners face when they use ladders, mobile towers and platforms, and it is a useful reference for the questions a client should ask.

The client should ask to see the risk assessment and the method statement for the work on its site. A short read-through can identify gaps. Does the assessment cover the washroom and the kitchen? Does it address the wet floor risk that the HSE identifies as a common problem in cleaning? Does it cover the handling of waste and the use of ladders? These questions do not need to be technical. They need to be specific.

Monitoring contractor performance

Duties under the Act do not end when the contract starts. A client should monitor the contractor's performance throughout the period of the contract. Monitoring does not need to be elaborate. A monthly walk round the site with the supervisor, a record of complaints and near misses, and a check that the agreed method is followed will reveal most problems. Where the contractor has a supervisor who visits regularly, the client can ask for a copy of the inspection record.

Monitoring also helps the client to spot changes in the work. A contractor who starts to cut corners, uses a product that is not on the agreed list or works in a way that puts others at risk will often show it first in small ways: a cleaning trolley left in a fire exit, a mop bucket with no warning sign, or a cleaner who does not know where the first aid kit is. Noticing these details early allows the client to raise them before an accident occurs.

Who does what in practice

It helps to divide the duties in writing. The cleaning contractor is usually responsible for its own staff, its equipment, its products and its method of working. The client is usually responsible for the building, its fire arrangements, its other occupants and the information it provides to the contractor. Shared areas such as corridors and kitchens need an agreed split, and the contract should say who clears up after a spillage, who reports a fault and who decides when a dangerous area is closed.

Where the client has its own staff in the building, the regulation on persons working in host employers' undertakings applies. Regulation 12 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires the host to give the contractor comprehensible information about the risks its undertaking creates for the cleaners and the measures in place, to make sure the cleaners themselves receive appropriate instructions and information, and to tell the contractor who will handle an evacuation. Where both employers share the workplace, regulation 11 adds a duty on each to co-operate, to co-ordinate their measures and to tell the other about risks arising from its own work. The arrangement is not complicated, but it does need to be written down and followed.

Putting the duties into the contract

The most practical way to manage these duties is to write them into the contract from the start. The contract should require the contractor to hold public liability and employers liability insurance, to provide risk assessments and method statements on request, to train its staff and to report accidents and near misses. The client should confirm the information it will provide, the induction process and the monitoring arrangements. Clear clauses of this kind are easier to enforce than a general statement that both parties will comply with the law.

The contract should also deal with what happens when something goes wrong. Who reports the incident to the Health and Safety Executive where a reporting duty applies? Who keeps the records? How quickly must the contractor respond to a request for information? These details seem minor until an incident occurs, and then they matter a great deal.

For a Bristol business, the simplest step is to set out the site information and monitoring arrangements in the schedule that goes with any request for a quote. That way the contractors price the work with the same understanding of the risks, and the client can see at a glance who is responsible for each part of the job. The services page for commercial cleaning describes how the standard contract is usually structured, and the guide on access and loading problems for cleaners in the city centre covers the particular site hazards that arise when buildings are hard to reach. The guide on hourly, per-visit or monthly pricing for Bristol cleaning explains how monitoring time is priced.