Calculations of risk: regulation and responsibility for asbestos in social housing

Our plain-English summary of Calculations of risk: regulation and responsibility for asbestos in social housing, by L. Waldman, H. Williams (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2013).

The study

• Authors: L. Waldman, H. Williams
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2013;19(2):91-103
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Objective: This paper examines questions of risk, regulation, and responsibility in relation to asbestos lodged in UK social housing.

Background: Despite extensive health and safety legislation protecting against industrial exposure, very little regulatory attention is given to asbestos present in domestic homes.

Conclusion: The paper argues that this lack of regulatory oversight, combined with the informal, contractual, and small-scale work undertaken in domestic homes weakens the basic premise of occupational health and safety, namely that rational decision-making, technical measures, and individual safety behavior lead concerned parties (workers, employers, and others) to minimize risk and exposure. The paper focuses on UK council or social housing, examining how local housing authorities - as landlords - have a duty to provide housing, to protect and to care for residents, but points out that these obligations do not extend to health and safety legislation in relation to DIY undertaken by residents. At the same time, only conventional occupational health and safety, based on rationality, identification, containment, and protective measures, cover itinerant workmen entering these homes. Focusing on asbestos and the way things work in reality, this paper thus explores the degree to which official health and safety regulation can safeguard maintenance and other workers in council homes. It simultaneously examines how councils advise and protect tenants as they occupy and shape their homes. In so doing, this paper challenges the notion of risk as an objective, scientific, and effective measure. In contrast, it demonstrates the ways in which occupational risk - and the choice of appropriate response - is more likely situational and determined by wide-ranging and often contradictory factors.

In plain English

This qualitative study examined how asbestos in UK council (social) housing is regulated and who is responsible for it. In summer 2009 the authors reviewed regulations, reports, policies and news coverage, and interviewed council managers and staff, 13 residents and others. A council cleaner and caretaker who had removed asbestos bath panels and cleaned up broken ceiling panels was diagnosed with pleural plaques and pleural effusion in 2006, never having been told about asbestos or trained. In South Tyneside, the asbestos register showed asbestos as removed when it had not all been removed. Discarded floor tiles a contractor said contained asbestos sat on a pavement for months while children played around them. A resident's artex ceiling tested negative, then in 2008 tested positive for chrysotile. The authors argued that councils not informing residents had fewer reported breaches and received good assessments. They concluded that the HSE's approach was unlikely to protect workers as long as it made individual workers responsible in an environment where it is almost impossible to know whether asbestos is present and workers have no control over the workspace.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Qualitative study combining a literature and document review with open-ended interviews, carried out in summer 2009
• Who was studied: UK social housing: six interviews with managers from three local authorities, 13 interviews with social housing residents, seven interviews with representatives of four local housing authorities, and telephone interviews with representatives of the Local Government Ombudsman, the HSE, the TUC and asbestos removal companies
• Exposure: Asbestos lodged in UK social housing (examples in the article include bath panels, ceiling panels, boiler lagging, chimney breast boarding, vinyl floor tiles and an artex ceiling containing chrysotile), as encountered by maintenance workers, caretakers and residents doing DIY
• Main results:
  • A council employee of 25 years (cleaner, then caretaker), who had removed asbestos bath panels and cleaned up broken ceiling panels, was diagnosed in October 2006 with pleural plaques and pleural effusion. Later examinations found diffuse pleural thickening and reduced lung function. The person had never been informed about asbestos, given equipment or trained.
  • In South Tyneside, the Asbestos Register showed asbestos removed from boiler chambers, but an HSE investigation found the sampling was inadequate. Asbestos had been removed from houses on one side of the street but not from those on the other side.
  • In a Wealden District Council house, discarded floor tiles that the contractor said contained asbestos were left on the pavement, and children played around the pile for several months.
  • A resident's hand-mixed artex ceiling was tested by the council in 1994 and no asbestos was found. Tests in April 2008, one paid for by the resident and one by Homes in Havering, confirmed chrysotile asbestos.
  • Large-scale asbestos removal at Windsor House (104 flats and maisonettes, 15-month project) required relocating families and was described as a management headache and a large financial drain on the council.
  • Housing professionals described a 21-day 'void turnaround' target for re-letting empty properties. The authors said this target made substantial asbestos work difficult, given the HSE notification requirements.
  • The authors argued that councils which do not inform residents about asbestos, and so have fewer reported breaches, receive good audit assessments. By contrast, Milton Keynes, which involved residents, was criticised after a resident's exposure incident was reported.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the HSE's regulatory and scientific approach of encapsulated asbestos management was unlikely to inform or protect workers as long as it made the individual worker responsible for occupational health and safety. They placed that responsibility in an environment where it is almost impossible to know whether asbestos is present and where workers have no control over the workspace.

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