Paul Jenks

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement

HM Revenue & Customs:Employment Status Indicator

HM Revenue & Customs: Construction Industry Scheme

Speak to your local HMRC office. Ours in Oxford has always been very helpful. Accountants are just the same as tree surgeons. If you want good advice, ask a good one.

A plastic shovel usually works. You'll learn to process stuff into long straight lengths to enable it to be pushed down rather than just small bits.

I think, Sam, that if you work more than 25% of your time for an employer on a regular basis HMRC see it as employment. Check with HMRC. If you are employed part-time you get your holiday pro-rata depending on the number of days you work. Depending on which days you work, i.e. Mondays, you'll get bank holidays paid off too. You should also get all PPE and equipment to perform your daily tasks and a certain amount of training, assuming the company is good. You'll also get a contract of employment. The company may insist you leave your PPE at work so it is only used for their work. The CIS scheme does apply to arboriculture, it's just that, up 'til now, HMRC haven't been too fussed. Any company who uses subcontract labour is meant to submit a monthly return for all their subbies whether they were paid or not. They also have to deduct CIS contributions at either 10, 20 or 30% depending on the level HMRC deem. The employer/main contractor is always ultimately responsible for any outstanding tax liabilities if their subcontactors are found to be not paying. It's a way of ensuring that companies do the work of HMRC and if they don't they have to pay. The system is there. Ignorance of the system is no excuse. Many of our clients take CIS contributions from our invoices and we offset this against our monthly PAYE payments.

Etchers love box. They usually have to use epoxy blocks as box of any size is rare. It used to be used for pictures in very old printing presses as it has such tight grain and is very hard and stable. I'm told each etching would be good for 1000+ prints before the quality started to diminish. 8-9 years ago we had a small trailer load of it and a mate of a mate drove down from Newcastle to get it.

So get rid of everything that is written down to £1 and replace it. Spend money on training, yourself as well as your staff. Buy a shiney van to drive around in and still hire the MEWP.

Look at what you've used historically. Look at the purchase costs and the running costs, including the LOLER tests. Look at what usually breaks and how much it is to repair, how long it takes to get the parts and how much this down time will cost. Then look at how much it costs to hire, time to collect and return etc. Do you put the cost of hire on the bill at the quote stage? Even with your own machine this should be written into the quote. Do you want the machine because it's shiny and you have room in the shed or is there a genuine business requirement to own one? We use all sorts and hire them to suit the job.

First things first. Does your nearest supplier stock Husky or Stihl? Then narrow it down. I know Stihl have a years warranty even for professional use so if you have any issues in that time you can get it sorted. We have a few of the 261s and one of them is a bit crappy but then it has had a brutal life. It's the saw of choice as it has plently of grunt and it's light. As with most of our saws we run them with the mid sized bar recommended for the saw. This gives good length without straining the engine.

This isn't an AA love-in, though I would wholly endorse what Paul has outlined. Going down the AAAC route definately improved our systems, procedures and quality standards consistently. The idea behind an individual accreditation is that too often we see potential staff come to us with all the tickets and no ability, limited ability or positively dangerous. We now vet every qualification. If there was a verifiable accreditation system that was peer reviewed, immediatly available and national the industry would be significantly more advanced than other trades. It would save contractors and employees time and develop a career path in an industry where, up to now, it has been absent.

Nice one Paul. On the matter of 'approving', (for want of a better word), individual climbers, this something Lantra are developing. It starts with the apprenticeship scheme. My views on certification testing versus commercial competency notwithstanding, the apprenticeship is a good start toward validating climber/groundie competency. One of my guys, Paul McBride, is developing the idea that accreditation/endorsement within the 'approved/apprenticeship' scheme should decay over time and should be online and peer reviewed. There should also be a health and safety awareness refresher. (We have spoken to HSE and Lantra and as they cannot commit to funding it we may develop it ourselves.) FYI we are AAAC. Being AAAC was and continues to be a journey. The culture of all those within the business should be aligned to the ethos and this takes time and is a challenge to many. The arb industry is changing and evolving even if the process of cutting bits off trees remains principally the same.

On a larger scale, a person has to be assigned to auditing. All the systems have to be audited on a regular basis. There is an expectation that everything office based is reviewed 6-monthly or at least annually. Operationally, 10-15% of tasks should be audited for safety and quality. Once a company/business has 2 or more teams going out the costs for monitoring start to add up. There is also an expectation that the standards for review and documentation will be higher and so the qualifications attached to the position of auditor need to be higher. Thus the costs escalate more. A challenge for any company/business is to target resources at compliance in such a way as to minimise costs whilst still remaining compliant. If a manager is tasked with auditing and is not given enough time to do it and is still expected to carry out his/her normal daily duties on site or surveying, there are no prizes for guessing which aspect of their role will take the back seat. Ultimately, it is the boss who is responsible. Look at it like servicing a vehicle. Every year it has to pass the MOT. There are inevitably some bits to fix or advisories. Keep the vehicle serviced and there should be no issues. Have an accident with a good service record and you have done all that is reasonable. With a fleet vehicle there is more responsibility and the driver has to document daily checks and defects. There is, of course, a cost to servicing. To continue the vehicle analogy, it's disappointing to see other road users not keeping their vehicles in good order.

Armed with a document like that Roglog should be able to progress successfully. Nice post Woodguy.

I'm guessing you've tried Rob and Hailey at Oakleaf. Are you waiting to get your tickets before applying for jobs? Getting tickets is only a small part of getting on. If you're any good, a decent employer will fund your training. If you've only just got your tickets you're less likely to be commercially viable straight away, so get some time in on the tools. Are you in employment currently or actively seeking a job/career?

It's one of the challenges with the audit process. You make a some valid points. The manager is the key person, and that manager(who could be the owner) is the one who is supposed to have been deemed competent to monitor quality across the company, not just the tree work. There will always be occassions where a good company produces some rubbish work or provides a poor service. Anyone who says otherwise is talking crap. What the company does about it is the difference. The audit systems are there to pick up deficiences and allow the company to rectify them. A good company will always endeavour to rectify there shortcomings both internally and with their clients and will improve their systems to inhibit future similar occurences. The AAAC scheme is there to give clients the confidence that the company has a recognised quality standard for all aspects of the business. When an AAAC company doesn't consistently demonstrate this recognised quality standard it reflects poorly on the whole accreditation and by extension other AAAC companies as much as on themselves. The way forward is not simple. There are many companies and businesses operating outside the AAAC scheme that are excellent at both customer relations and treework. The challenge is that the AAAC scheme is the one recognised and is therefore the one to adopt in most commercial and a growing number of private arenas. For the AAAC scheme to continue to build its credibility with contractors and clients it will need to be more robust in it's own auditing and investigating proceedures and able to show to it's doubters that the type of issue you have raised is taken seriously and is addressed and seen to be addressed.

I got back into the routine of regular exercise by habitualizing it. I.e. Doing a little every day at the same time to program my body to expect it. Do too much at first and it may be too much to sustain. I started by running for 10-15 minutes first thing every morning or doing intervals on the rowing machine. I was really keen and had to limit what I did each day as I find it easy to get carried away and then go too far. On limited sleep, doing too much wrecks me. Get into a routine and training becomes a habit. The same goes for eating.

Most of our stuff has names. How the boys think up some of them or deign to humiliate themselves by writing the names on them and then calling for them on site I don't know. Picked a randomn saw from the box to take down to my mum's and it's called Tarquin. The little gravity fed timberwolf is called Francine. They reckon it wants to be a real chipper and be called Frank, but isn't man enough.

It's a complicated and obscure piece of legislation. If you have a holding number for the plot you can do this, though it'd be prudent to speak to a planning consultant. We do quite a bit of work alongside a top end consultant and he used this to good effect a few years ago for one of our clients. You'd need to be prepared to spend a bit of cash for some good advice and guidance. Speak to several different consultants to get a bit of knowledge and help your research. They'll usually give you a bit of time for nowt.

I'd have thought Guy could get up there by himself:thumbup: (Sorry Guy)

Don't know the details, though it's my understanding that there aren't enough of the the trees to go round. Therefore no-one gets to practice. If we have a suitable weather event I dare say some will get the opportunity to do some.

Wheels like that make very cool coffee tables. Bit of glass on top. The discs and calipers would have made really expensive coffee table accessories

A nice bit of history too.

You need a special licence to transport it. If you burn on site the ash is supposed to be buried 5m deep. You'll need a waste transfer note from the contractor moving the stuff. http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.sepa.org.uk/customer_information/idoc.ashx%3Fdocid%3Dc9451616-c276-4365-aad2-6af888a0c41d%26version%3D-1&sa=U&ei=Q2-0UO3GBcLQ0QXl9YBo&ved=0CCoQFjAF&usg=AFQjCNFPeDTmBuBMzkQ_3q3Z-aRmQEyF3Q My apologies if this link doesn't work, just Google transporting japanese knotweed and look at the SEPA site.

This is where communicating with the employer counts, (I know this can be very hard. Feelings are a difficult thing to express, especially in the testosterone fuelled environment we inhabit.). Training shouldn't stop at vocational subjects. Management and leadership courses are available and should be used. It's also important to get the right type of training as it isn't a one size fits all. Employers should recognize the importance of this and the investment they have already made in a person to get them to the stage where they are going to be promoted. Get it right and the benefits far outweigh the costs. Get it wrong and productivity falls, emnity rises and staff leave.