Information for duty holders
What is a duty holder?
The ‘duty’ to manage asbestos is outlined in Regulation 4 of CAR 2012. These regulations stipulate what is required of the person who has the duty to manage asbestos on a particular non-domestic site, with this person being known as the ‘duty holder’.
It isn’t always immediately obvious who the duty holder for a particular building actually is. If this is the case for the building that you use and occupy, it is therefore crucial to seek professional advice, so that you are in no doubt about your responsibilities in relation to asbestos management.
In a nutshell, the duty holder will be either the owner of the non-domestic premises, or the person or organisation that is clearly responsible for the building’s maintenance or repair. The identity of the latter may be made clear through an explicit arrangement, such as a tenancy agreement or contract.
What is the duty holder responsible for?
Regulation 4 of CAR 2012 makes clear that the owners and occupiers of non-domestic premises have an explicit duty to assess and manage the risks presented by asbestos on a given site.
The use of asbestos in industries such as construction is now banned in the UK, but the substance remains present in many buildings around the country constructed before the year 2000. The duty holder is responsible for protecting the people who work in or otherwise use the premises from the potentially profoundly serious health risks that contact with asbestos poses.
What are the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012?
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, or CAR 2012, came into force on 6 April 2012. They incorporated previous UK asbestos regulations, and essentially represented an update to the law, to take account of the view of the European Commission that the UK had not fully implemented the EU Directive on exposure to asbestos.
Included in these regulations – albeit unchanged from the regulatory situation prior to CAR 2012 – is a duty for those responsible for the maintenance of non-domestic premises to also manage the asbestos within them.