Company provided saws

[dsearle]

Hey, just wondering if you are employed full time should the company provide saws and if yes/no what legislation backs this up?

[Gray git]

If your employed the company should provide all the equipment necessary to carry out the work you have been employed to do including tools, ppe and fuel unless you have a pre agreed deal where you provide it but are paid a set allowance for each time it's used but this is rare these days as is open to conflict from both sides.

As for legislation Im not sure what exactly would cover if it's just tools your asking about.

[richy_B]

I would assume if properly employed you provide all the tools/fuel/etc as gray git said. You could do it like a vehicle I guess and pay a price per day/hour for them using their own saw/fuel.

 

Legislation wise I would expect you need them to demonstrate/show certification their saw is safe , ie CE marks, no safety features removed, etc. The same way you might ask for certificates for cs30/31 and so on. Essentially a paper trail so if anything went wrong you can say you have evidence you checked his kit was safe.

[Johnsond]

If your employed the company should provide all the equipment necessary to carry out the work you have been employed to do including tools, ppe and fuel unless you have a pre agreed deal where you provide it but are paid a set allowance for each time it's used but this is rare these days as is open to conflict from both sides.

As for legislation Im not sure what exactly would cover if it's just tools your asking about.

 

Probably PUWER regs would be the appropriate legislation for any tool or piece of eqpt provided by an employer to an employee.

HSE uk website would have all you need to know on it but be warned a little time spent on there and you will be joining the campaign for plain English

[Warners]

Hey, just wondering if you are employed full time should the company provide saws and if yes/no what legislation backs this up?

 

If you're PAYE then the employer will provide all equipment, PPE, vehivles, etc. you'll also receive holiday/sick pay entitlement. Any other arrangement would be difficult to manage...

[Alinicoll]

I don't think that employers are obliged to provide tools. PUWER just says that they need to be fit for purpose, appropriate to the task, inspected and used by trained operatives.

 

I think that for tax purposes it generally makes sense for an employer to buy kit for PAYE employees but some companies find employees look after person kit better. You might expect some kind of tool allowance for providing tools but that's between you and your employer.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

It's an interesting question. I'm not certain, but I was lead to believe a couple of the larger companies locally pay an allowance and expect the user to buy and own their own saw.

 

I'm sure there was a thread previously that talked about this and a comparable example of grass mowers was offered - in that case (from memory and only retelling what I can recall of what was told before) the company owned the mowers that were used by the employees.

 

There was a ridiculous maintenance bill annually because nobody really took care of the kit. Then the company allocated specific mowers to specific staff and told them that after a certain period of time (value write down period I presume) they would be eligible to buy the mowers at written down value.

 

Suddenly, the maintenance bill miraculously tumbled because individuals started treating the kit with respect as they stood to take ownership after it had been written off by the company.

 

I've seen the state "communal" chainsaws are left in. One of the companies I delivered training to had a shared kit policy. The user drawing the saw from stores collected it pretty much in the condition the previous user returned it - fairly consistently appalling.

 

As an aside, it also indicated a shortcoming in the maintenance and PUWER attitude of the storekeeper/maintainer as well as the company because they were issuing kit that was unfit for use.

 

If you add to that the gadgety/personal nature of chainsaw users, it perhaps wouldn't be such a bad idea to pay an allowance and ask employees to buy from a pre-decided range / spec appropriate to the work being undertaken. Then it's their saw, they get the allowance on a set timeframe, they are the only user of the saw, they look after it and make it last as long as possible so that if they don't need to spend the allowance on a new saw they get to keep the cash?

 

Assuming all users are suitably qualified in basic maintenance, and perhaps there is a time specified workshop inspection, that could satisfy PUWER too.

 

There's only 1 person I would ever lend or borrow a chainsaw to / from - the very thought of "shared" saws makes me very unwell!

[devon TWiG]

Many trades provide their own tools .... mechanics and carpenters for example. One company I worked for for a long time everyone had their own saws and I used to look after the company provided big saws , mainly because I used them most, and it was a system that everyone appeared happy with and it seemed to work , and you could tell a lot about individuals by the state of their own personal saws !!!

Edited March 5, 2016 by devon TWiG

[eggsarascal]

many trades provide their own tools .... mechanics and carpenters for example

 

....... And charge proper money for their services..... Each to their own mind.

[Richard Thompson]

I've supplied my own saw on a few jobs, for the company I work for but only when a company saw is in for repair and we need to finish a job or when we need a couple of big saws on the big trees.

Otherwise it's all the company's equipment and fuel used on a company job