- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 8 months ago by
Derek.
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Hi,
I am after some advice on issuing electronic air monitoring reports. In particular the DCU clearance certificate.
What are the members thoughts on emailing the DCU clearance certificate to the site supervisor in place of a physical copy that would normally be placed within the DCU?
Is it the analysts “duty” to provide a hard copy for this purpose or would it be on the supervisor to print it off for their own use?
We have recently moved over to all electronic reports (this will eventually be the same for all once the new analysts’ guide is released I would imagine) – is anyone aware if the DCU’s are also going to move with the times and perhaps have some form of digital screen where an electronic certificate can be displayed?
For the LARC’s is it common for you to receive electronic DCU certificates and how do you manage this when returning a DCU which may be hired from a third party? Or how does it work when you collect a DCU that has an electronic only certificate?
Many thanks in advance for all opinions.
Hi,
L143 para 435 states a [separate] clearance certificate is ‘obtained’ for the DCU – but this is listed under ‘is helped by’. However of note is that ‘obtained’ does not differentiate between electronic or hard copy.
L143 para 460 states ‘… A separate clearance certificate should be issued for the hygiene facility. This certificate should be issued to the licensed contractor upon completion of the test and should be kept with the facility.’; and
L143 para 524 says the DCU should not leave site until a certificate is issued.
This implies that providing the certificate to the LARC is the analysts role and keeping it with the DCU is the LARC’s role. Again no requirement for this to be a hard copy but see my comment below in regard to ‘kept with the DCU’.
L143 para 463 has the heading ‘Duties of those issuing clearance certificates’ and continues
‘The person who issues the site clearance certificate for reoccupation or the clearance certificate for the hygiene facility does not have direct duties under the Regulations. However, people issuing these certificates should follow this guidance to comply with their duty under section 3 of the HSW Act to protect the health of people other than their employees. They should also consider the provision in section 36 of the HSW Act, which may apply if the work they do leads to others who do have duties under the Regulations to fail in those duties.’
So there is no explicit duty placed on the analyst (under CAR2012) and the provision of the certificate in electronic form appears to comply with both the ACoP and guidance.
The grey area appears to be whether an electronic version is deemed to be ‘kept with the DCU’ which in my opinion it would – the LARC can retain and send the certificate to any interested party or, in the case of rental, to the rental company. In any event this would be for the LARC to determine.
All in my opinion.
Rob
Good morning,
Thank you for the posts this morning. In response to the first post and to follow on from Rob, please see below in italics.
I am after some advice on issuing electronic air monitoring reports. In particular the DCU clearance certificate.
What are the members thoughts on emailing the DCU clearance certificate to the site supervisor in place of a physical copy that would normally be placed within the DCU? This is common practice already, the analyst will ordinarily email the cert to the site supervisor and the LARC’s office.
Is it the analysts “duty” to provide a hard copy for this purpose or would it be on the supervisor to print it off for their own use? Some analytical companies do carry small printers and will also produce a hard copy if requested, however this goes against our carbon footprint policies and somewhat defeats the object of going paperless therefore the normal procedure is as above, to email the cert to the supervisor and the LARC’s office. The analyst doesn’t have a duty to provide a hard copy.
We have recently moved over to all electronic reports (this will eventually be the same for all once the new analysts’ guide is released I would imagine) – is anyone aware if the DCU’s are also going to move with the times and perhaps have some form of digital screen where an electronic certificate can be displayed? This is something that we are not aware of, however we can ask the question of the hire/supply companies of DCU’s and gauge their view.
For the LARC’s is it common for you to receive electronic DCU certificates and how do you manage this when returning a DCU which may be hired from a third party? Or how does it work when you collect a DCU that has an electronic only certificate? Yes it is common practice for the LARC to receive the cert electronically for the DCU. The LARC will normally email this cert to the hire company, or print the cert when returning to the office if they own the DCU. During transit the site supervisor/driver will have a copy of the cert on their smartphone/tablet to demonstrate the unit has been tested prior to leaving site whilst in transit. When hiring a unit the supplier will of course check the unit over to ensure it is fit for purpose (gas/electricity/clearance test etc) The certs are ordinarily printed by the hire company and displayed in the ‘clean end’ of the unit. Upon request, the hirer can of course email the documents.
Morning – agree with the above.
We always email but have printed copy as an option.
We try to go paperless as far as possible, but all of our mobile labs have printers and a hard copy is always offered as an option. Some LARCs are still insistent on hard copies.
Screens in DCUs is not something we’ve seen.
Despite efforts to go paperless we still find that someone prints a copy for the DCU at some point in the chain, however, it’s moving in the right direction.
Good morning, thanks Rob, Glen and Toby. In my view as long as there is a record of the last air test conducted for the DCU available to the analyst and others then this is acceptable. It is a useful when opening the ‘clean’ end and you can readily see all the relevant certs though, a screen in a DCU could be the way to go.
Good to read there is a consensus and we can stop using paper records.
Hi,
This matter was discussed by the ALG Technical Working Group back in December 2013. At that point it was about whether or not the certificate had to be left on site or could it be sent on afterwards. The agreement was that it needed to be left on site and as such L143 was amended. Although it wasn’t captured in the notes the discussion did consider whether it needed to be paper or if an electronic certificate would suffice. The view taken was that it didn’t matter the main requirement was that the analyst provided it to the LARC and it was up to them to ensure they have what ever facility was required to be able to see/view/provide that to anyone else who needed it. It was acknowledged at that time that analysts were moving to electronic reporting and also that most LARCs were also using electronic systems such as tablets for holding electronic records and therefore it shouldn’t be an issue if they received the certificate electronically. I have attached a copy of the minutes from the meeting – refer to item 13.
Hi,
This matter was discussed by the ALG Technical Working Group back in December 2013. At that point it was about whether or not the certificate had to be left on site or could it be sent on afterwards. The agreement was that it needed to be left on site and as such L143 was amended. Although it wasn’t captured in the notes the discussion did consider whether it needed to be paper or if an electronic certificate would suffice. The view taken was that it didn’t matter the main requirement was that the analyst provided it to the LARC and it was up to them to ensure they have what ever facility was required to be able to see/view/provide that to anyone else who needed it. It was acknowledged at that time that analysts were moving to electronic reporting and also that most LARCs were also using electronic systems such as tablets for holding electronic records and therefore it shouldn’t be an issue if they received the certificate electronically. I have attached a copy of the minutes from the meeting – refer to item 13.
Thank you all for your responses – they are helpful and very appreciated.
I’m all in favour of paperless and giving the LARC the responsibility to display it.
I’ve lost count of how many times we have found the cert in the DCU to be several weeks old and assured this was the last job it was used on – impossible to check without the DCU having a usage log present.
We have never heard of a LARC being stopped whilst the DCU is in transit and a copy of the clearance cert tbeing requested.
The current system does not work.
Hi,
With regards to companies adapting to electronic certificates / reports for Air Sampling and Four Stage Clearances, do any members have any suggestions for a simple drawing package which can be utilised for inclusion within the final reports.
The problem we have previously identified is that some of the drawings we have seen since the adoption of the electronic version have been very rudimentary i.e. a box with an ‘x’ in the middle.
We are aware that some software companies have the ability to have this built into the software system, but other systems which we predominately use for surveys and other activities do not.
Any thoughts or suggestions from members in particular using ios devices would be of great assistance in helping us all going forward with regards to electronic reports, as with our previous experience the actual drawing produced forms a critical part in understanding the works which were conducted.
We have used microsoft visio for producing drawings for both surveys and air monitoring. We always had the ability to produce a little library of various shapes and items which we could include as part of the legend to then pull across and use as and when needed within the drawing.
I no longer produce this type of report and am guessing there may be other packages out there but visio definitely served us well 🙂
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