Asbestos policy

Introduction

At Magna, we’re committed to ensuring the safety of our customers, colleagues and others who work with us.

Managing the risk of asbestos safety is crucial. This policy sets out our asbestos safety standards and procedures, ensuring that we meet all legal and regulatory requirements.

Who this policy applies to and what it covers

This policy applies to:

• All homes, estates, communal buildings and offices that we own and manage.
• All colleagues and anyone else we employ in the design, construction, management and maintenance of our homes and estates.

• Arrangements to ensure effective controls are in place for the safe management of asbestos and asbestos containing materials in our offices and homes.
• Ensuring the risk of personal injury to colleagues, contractors and customers from the damage or accidental release of asbestos fibres is minimised.

Our Asbestos Safety Policy

The safety of our customers, colleagues and contractors is at the heart of what we do. We’re committed to ensuring that asbestos safety management activities meet legal and regulatory requirements and achieve our Regulator’s Consumer Standard. We strive to achieve what is considered to be industry best practice.

We’re committed to ensuring that everyone involved in managing asbestos safety at Magna demonstrate the appropriate competency levels and, where necessary, third-party accreditation.

We comply with The Construction (Design and Management) Regulation 2015, where we have a duty to pass on information about the state or condition of any premises, including the presence of any hazardous materials, to the principal designer and contractor before any work starts.

We’re committed to ensuring our new homes being built don’t contain asbestos.

We’ll consult with customers on asbestos safety related activities, inform them about the outcome of assessments, ensure awareness, provide advice and listen and respond to any safety concerns.

The safety of our customers is paramount. We’ll ensure that resources and funding required to deliver asbestos safety works are prioritised, taking into account a risk-based approach to the urgency of the work.

Performance on asbestos safety is regularly scrutinised to ensure continuous improvement and to ensure that any lessons learnt are embedded.

Our Asbestos Safety Standard and Procedure

We want to make sure that we’re clear about the standards we’re working to for asbestos management. We have an Asbestos Safety Standard which explains what we’ll do to promote asbestos safety, who is responsible for delivering the service and how frequently we’ll carry out specific activities in customers’ homes, communal areas and on our estates.

The standard is supported by a clear procedure and instructions to ensure that the services are delivered consistently by our colleagues and specialist contractors. The standard and procedure are kept under constant review to ensure they are fit for purpose in a fast-changing environment.

Responsibilities for Asbestos Safety Management

The Director of Customer Operations is accountable for all aspects of asbestos management at Magna and for the development and review of the Asbestos Safety Policy and Asbestos Safety Standard annually, ensuring that they meet all regulatory requirements and guidance.

The Head of Building Safety, Compliance and Home Services is responsible for operational delivery of asbestos management activities, maintaining accurate asbestos data and is for reporting on asbestos management in line with governance arrangements. They’re also responsible for ensuring that customers are effectively consulted on all aspects of asbestos in their homes and estates.

All colleagues are responsible for ensuring that the work they carry out meets our policies and standards.

This policy will be considered and approved annually by our Strategic Board.

A range of performance measures and indicators, relating directly to the Asbestos Safety Standard, will be agreed and reported to managers and directors as appropriate. High level performance indicators will be reported to Strategic Board on a regular basis.

Our performance on asbestos safety, including lessons learned from incidents will form part of the quarterly report to the Health and Safety Forum and will be included in the annual report to Strategic Board on corporate health and safety.