Two Facilities Management companies have been sentenced for safety failings after a worker was electrocuted during work on a data centre in Middlesex. Balfour Beatty Engineering Services Ltd (BBES) was contracted to carry out multi-million pound infrastructure upgrade works at the data centre in Hounslow, while Norland Managed Services Ltd (NMS) was already contracted to provide mechanical and electrical maintenance and had effective control of the site. Ipswich Crown Court heard Martin Walton, 27, from Blackhall Colliery, Cleveland was kille... Continue reading

The cleaning sector contributes over £8 billion pounds to the British economy every year and now a campaign to promote good working conditions has been launched by an industry-led taskforce set up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  The taskforce, chaired by EHRC Deputy Chair Caroline Waters, includes leading businesses, trade associations and trade unions. The Commission convened the taskforce following publication of its report The Invisible Workforce: employment practices in the cleaning sector and set out the findings on empl... Continue reading

Yesterday marked the start of European Week for Safety and Health at Work – a week-long initiative, held in October every year, to promote healthy and safe workplaces across the continent, focusing in particular this year on stress. Events will be held across Europe to mark the occasion and put stress and psychosocial risks in the workplace in the spotlight. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and its network of partners aim to get Europe talking about how we can tackle these risks together. EU-OSHA’s network of na... Continue reading

The UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has issued new guidance for employers on the use of zero hours contracts – the controversial model used in many sectors to employ workers on an as-needed basis. Zero hours contracts are defined by BIS as an employment model where the employer does not guarantee the individual any hours of work. Instead, the employer offers the individual work when it arises, and the individual can either accept the work offered, or decide not to take up the offer of work on that occasion. Follo... Continue reading

I make no apology for sending my public congratulations to this year’s winner of the BIFM Lifetime Achievement Award, Martin Pickard. International Workplace, through its previous incarnation as Workplace Law, would not exist as it does today without Martin’s early support. Martin has been a long-term advocate of professionalising facilities management (long before the phrase was popular), and has always supported the development of standards and common-sense regulation in the sector – always with an eye to adding value to both the clie... Continue reading