As Safe As Houses?

07/11/2009 : go back

Every year thousands of people die from asbestos related diseases in Britain. UCATT’s membership has always been at a particularly high risk of exposure to asbestos dust due to the nature of work performed by members of the union.

This is why for many years UCATT has been a key driving force to ban the use of asbestos, make working conditions safer where asbestos could still be in place, and campaign for proper compensation when exposure has occurred.

Our focus on asbestos was vindicated when earlier this year research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that construction workers are now at the greatest risk of dying from asbestos conditions. Carpenters who were heavily exposed to asbestos below the age of 30 have a 1 in 10 chance of developing mesothelioma.

At the end of last year UCATT commissioned Dr Linda Waldman and Heather Williams from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex to conduct research on asbestos in social housing. We asked them to examine the risks faced by tenants in social housing, both through daily lives and DIY work, as well as the risks for workers, doing repairs and maintenance in the buildings. The research also looks at a number of legislative questions in relation to asbestos and examines some issues in the area of private housing.

The report revealed a number of disturbing findings which are summarised below. Some of them were previously known and expected, others were new and extremely worrying, even for an organisation like UCATT which has a great deal of expertise on asbestos.

Asbestos has been used extensively for more than a century, and is estimated to be present in 90 per cent of all UK public sector housing. However, due to current legislation councils have a lesser duty of care over homes than they do for a local library.

Tensions arise between social landlords’ responsibility for major repairs and the residents’ rights to shape their houses into homes. Should residents undertake improvements, they have a legal ‘Right to Compensation for Improvements’, which can be claimed retrospectively on leaving social housing. While social housing providers have no obligation to inform residents of asbestos in their homes, many of the activities for which residents can claim compensation are likely to directly expose workers or residents to asbestos. Such an approach, which encourages a relaxed attitude towards written consent prior to beginning alterations, greatly increases the potential that residents will shape their homes without being previously informed of the presence of asbestos.

The report highlights that the minimalist legal requirements concerning asbestos and different styles of participation and information dissemination by housing providers lead to differing degrees of asbestos awareness between different councils’ residents. Thus tenants renting a house from one social housing provider were provided with written information on where asbestos was to be found in their respective homes, were engaged in the development of the asbestos management plan and the production of the asbestos register. In another case residents received only sparse information.

The report also found that given the costs of dealing with asbestos (bringing in licensed asbestos removal contractors, delaying work schedules, replacing asbestos materials etc), it can be in social housing providers’ interests to avoid finding asbestos. Due to the additional costs social housing providers therefore tend to favour encapsulation and management of asbestos in-situ rather than its carefully planned and exercised removal. This nevertheless induces a form of false economy, as the real (both financial and human) costs of encapsulation will only be evident when today’s workers and tenants start showing the symptoms of asbestos-related diseases.

As regards private sector homes the report reveals that despite the introduction of Housing Information Packs (HIPs) and the requirement for a survey to be conducted before a property is sold, there is no legislation requiring either of these to record whether or not a house contains asbestos.

The report makes various recommendations as to how the current situation can be improved, including:

• Current legislation needs to be expanded to ensure that the duty to manage is extended to the internal part of domestic buildings.
• Legislation should be amended so that power tools display warning symbols to advise users to check that the materials they are working on do not contain asbestos.
• The asbestos register of council housing providers should be requested to provide far greater detail also concerning the domestic part of the properties.
• A mandatory asbestos survey should be carried out whenever social housing providers transfer residents.
• Increased asbestos awareness training and guidance should be provided to all local authority staff and to resident association representatives. This should be complemented with specialised training for those identified as more likely to encounter asbestos in their routine work procedures. The actual work on or removal of asbestos must then be done by licensed asbestos contractors.
• The content of the current training curricula for maintenance workers and tradesmen (such as national vocational qualifications) should where necessary be revised to ensure the prioritisation of asbestos hazards.
• Mandatory asbestos surveying should be introduced (specifying a basic standard and cost) whenever private housing sales take place.
• Regular public information campaigns should alert DIY enthusiasts of the dangers of asbestos and provide them with information and guidance.

Following the report’s launch in the House of Commons in early June 2009 I was pleased that there has been a strong interest and response from various people and groupings, including MPs, Government, unions and activists, and, of course, our members. An adjournment debate introduced to Parliament by Michael Clapham MP on 29th June drew further attention to the report a few week’s after its initial launch.

UCATT and our partner organisations are now lobbying for the report’s recommendations to be implemented, which has become an integral part of our long-standing and extensive asbestos campaign.