Somerset County Council
Audit Committee – 27 September 2012
Paper
F
Item No. 10
Premises Management Risks
Director: Richard Williams Lead Officer: Richard Crouch Author: Brian Oldham
Contact Details: x5089
Cabinet Member: Harvey Siggs Division and Local Member: N/A
1.
Summary/link to the Annual Plan
1.1. An update on the situation regarding the management of risk around the
maintenance of premises was requested by the Chair following discussion of the paper on H&S risks submitted to the June 2012 Audit Committee meeting, 1.2. With regard to the County Plan, this relates to Keeping Costs Down. In this case
not routine costs, but exceptional costs should the risks materialise.
2.
Issues for consideration
2.1. Premises management embraces a number of significant risk management issues relating to a range of hazards; e.g. fire, asbestos, legionella, electricity, gas. SCC currently requires SWOne P&FM Services to:
• maintain records on a property database of the maintenance and remedial work that they are responsible for organising. (This would include all the properties within the SCC portfolio except for schools that do not buy into BMIS in some way.)
• provide the premises managers with copies of relevant servicing/test records
This has not been happening, nor have there been any tangible steps taken by SWOne to address it to date.
2.2. The Audit Committee should be aware that officers within Business Development consider that the implications, of accepting the higher level of risk created until an asset management system being commissioned by SWOne is in place, are unacceptable. They are actively considering taking forward one or more of the following alternatives:
1. requiring SWOne to commission (for SCC) an externally performed audit of SWOne P&FM servicing and inspection data and
management arrangements to establish the degree of compliance being achieved.
2. insisting that SWOne introduce a suitable asset management system immediately (and suggest RAMIS as it is already up and running and will simply involve taking over responsibility for meeting the annual licence fee and any incidental data handling costs)
3. requiring SWOne to provide summary compliance reports at an appropriate frequency using their own sources of information.
3.
Background
3.1. Summary of previous concerns:
• The output specification for SWOne P&FM includes the following bullet points in Section 2.2.4
o Manage the maintenance and validation of property condition and
other relevant survey data and ensure input onto the property database.
o Monitor current developments and legislation affecting property
issues; e.g. DDA and co-ordinate action to implement and resulting action to ensure compliance.
• As SWOne does not provide SCC with collated reports, or access to well-organised or structured data with which to produce such reports, it is
impossible to be certain that all necessary remedial works and checks have been carried out.
o SWOne does not currently require all contractors to leave copies of
certificates / inspection reports on site with the premises manager. The only copies are sent into County Hall and filed. They will however supply copies to individual premises managers on request.
o There are occasions, when potentially serious defects highlighted
in inspection reports have not been addressed by SWOne in a timely fashion or passed on to the local premises manager for considerable periods of time – up to 14 months in one case, after a statutory electrical installation and wiring inspection listed a fault deemed as “requiring urgent attention”.
o A number of the control measures identified in site assessments,
particularly in relation to fire safety have not been implemented in a timely fashion.
• SCC H&S Policy reflects the recent trend in H&S legislation and approved codes of practice to require the nomination of a named Responsible Person for each premise. As premises management of the SCC portfolio is not carried out centrally, within the H&S policy and corporate property
standards, local managers have been given responsibilities in relation to servicing/testing and associated record keeping. As SWOne does not provide, or arrange to provide, the relevant records in relation to those premises where they fulfil the role, the premises manager is operating without adequate support. As an example, the Fire Authority has recently issued a premises manager with a letter of non-compliance as the relevant records were not available on site when the enforcing officer visited. The fire officers will not accept that the record is held in County Hall.
• The requirement to provide a property asset management system was a component of the original SWOne contract. It has not been met.
3.2. Progress to date:
• SWOne P&FM has undertaken to start using the premises-related risk management software currently licensed to SCC to record:
o the remedial actions their surveyors/engineers arrange to be
undertaken with regard to
Fire - from 1st September 2012
Asbestos and legionella - as soon as the data has been migrated across from other sources
o The Annual Servicing Statement (historic data) provided for each
premise from April 2013.
o All maintenance /inspection reports or test certificates issued by
contractors – from the date that contracts with contractors are re-negotiated
• The only compliance checks that do take place are those conducted by the Corporate Health and Safety Unit (CHSU). An analysis of the results of the most recent H&S Audits of premises has been completed to provide an idea of the scale of the problem. This has revealed that:
o In the last year, out of approximately 100 audits:
one school and one residential children’s home could not provide evidence of their annual service check of gas appliances
4 schools and 4 children’s centres could not provide evidence of permanent electrical installations being completed.
Notes:
1) Where a check is deemed to have been completed, it does not
necessarily mean that the certificate was on the premises, but that there was sufficient evidence for the auditor to be re-assured that the check had been carried out. (It does not provide any re-assurance that all remedial work identified has been carried out.)
2) Where certificates were found to be missing, the schools in question will then have been asked to request certificates from SWOne P&FM.
• SCC Client Team has formally issued SWOne with a contractual warning notice to provide a property asset management system. The situation to date is that the project to meet this requirement is in its very early stages. However, SWOne have submitted a proposal in response to the warning notice, which SCC are currently reviewing. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that it would need a further year from the date of purchase of any licences for the completion of the various module developments, and their population with data, before a system was workable.
5.
Implications
5.1. SCC, as the duty-holder in its capacity as landlord, occupier or employer, would be held primarily responsible for any significant failings identified in the event of any enforcement action or a civil claim.
5.2. The maintained and VA schools operating outside of BMIS would need to be involved in any arrangement to capture this information, as SCC is still a duty-holder.
6.
Background papers
6.1. H&S Audit Reports held on EEC Live, SCC H&S Policy Manual,
Property Services Output Specification
