How I Use the Asbestos Awareness Template with Customers in Pilla
Asbestos is the one topic where I don't soften the message. It kills around 5,000 people a year in the UK, more than road traffic accidents, and the diseases it causes are incurable. I've walked through buildings where landlords swore there was no asbestos, only for the survey to come back showing ACMs in the ceiling tiles, pipe lagging, and floor coverings. The gap between "we think it's fine" and "we've had it checked" is where the danger sits.
Most businesses I work with aren't doing asbestos removal. They're occupying buildings built before 2000 and need to know what's there, what condition it's in, and how to make sure nobody disturbs it. That's what this article covers. I'll walk you through what the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 actually require, give you a template you can edit for your own premises, and flag the mistakes I see most often when reviewing asbestos policies.
Key Takeaways
- What is asbestos awareness in health and safety? An asbestos awareness policy sets out how your business identifies, manages, and communicates the presence of asbestos containing materials in your premises. It covers survey requirements, action plans, workforce awareness, and monitoring arrangements
- Why do you need an asbestos awareness policy? The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 places a duty on anyone responsible for a building to manage asbestos risks. An HSE inspector will want to see that you've identified whether ACMs are present, acted on survey recommendations, and made your workforce aware
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
Asbestos was used in thousands of building products until it was banned in 1999. Fire resistance, insulation, durability. It ticked every box. The problem is that when asbestos containing materials are damaged or disturbed, they release microscopic fibres. Inhale those fibres and you're looking at mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung cancer, or asbestosis. These diseases take 15 to 60 years to show up. By the time they do, it's too late.
Any building constructed or refurbished before the year 2000 could contain asbestos. Ceiling tiles, pipe insulation, textured coatings, floor tiles, roof sheets. You can't tell by looking at a material whether it contains asbestos. The only way to know is through a proper survey and laboratory analysis.
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 place a duty on the person responsible for a building to manage asbestos. That means identifying whether ACMs are present, assessing their condition, preventing exposure, and keeping records. If you own the building, you arrange the survey. If you lease it, you get the survey results from the landlord. Either way, the duty to protect your workforce sits with you.
This isn't a paperwork exercise. Failure to manage asbestos is a criminal offence. An HSE inspector will want to see your survey, your action plan, evidence that recommendations have been addressed, and proof that your workforce knows where asbestos is and what to do about it. I've seen enforcement notices issued to businesses that had surveys gathering dust in a filing cabinet while their maintenance team drilled into asbestos-containing ceiling panels. The survey means nothing if nobody reads it.
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 underpins all of this with a general duty to protect employees and others from risks arising from work activities. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 add the requirement to assess risks and appoint competent persons. For asbestos specifically, the 2012 Regulations are the ones that spell out exactly what you need to do.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built an asbestos awareness template in Pilla covering the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, survey requirements for owned and leased buildings, managing known ACMs, workforce awareness, and monitoring arrangements. It gives you a structured starting point, but you need to edit it to reflect your actual premises.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Health and Safety System". Use the same tag across all of your health and safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through every section. Where it says "Company Name", replace it with your business name. Where it refers to responsible persons, name them. If you own your building and have a completed survey, reference the survey date and summarise the findings. If you lease and have obtained the landlord's survey results, note that. The policy should describe your situation, not a generic one.
14. Asbestos
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
Asbestos can be found in any industrial, commercial or residential building built or refurbished before the year 2000. Company name have a duty if our venue falls into this bracket, to ensure that people working for us are not exposed to asbestos containing materials in the course of their work and that we do not expose other people to the risk of exposure to asbestos as a result of our work activity.
Company Name control this potential hazard by following these safety arrangements:
For buildings built prior to 2000 which are owned by Company Name: *Responsible Persons to arrange an asbestos survey which records all asbestos containing materials (ACM's) located on site. Company Name are responsible for addressing the recommendations documented whether that's removal, labelling or just managing the locations recorded. The Responsible Persons will address the action plan in line with the recommended timescales.
For buildings built prior to 2000 which are leased by Company Name: Responsible Persons to approach Landlord to identify whether an asbestos survey has been completed, results of the survey and what Company Name must do to comply with the stated action plan (if required).
In the event the venue falls into the bracket where an asbestos survey is required but has not been arranged by the landlord: Responsible Persons to enter discussions to facilitate the survey with the assistance of the landlord. In the event the landlord refuses to conduct a survey, Company Name will take the decision to complete the survey and liaise with the landlord to address the action plan issued.
In the event Company Name knows that asbestos containing materials are present in the venue: Company Name will make sure that our workforce is fully aware and that the work activity is arranged so as to avoid their disturbance.
We will monitor and review areas where asbestos containing materials are present
Company Name will have fulfilled their duty, when an asbestos survey has been completed and we have been informed that there are no asbestos materials within the fabric of the building.
Responsible persons are identified on the House Responsibility Chart section of the health & safety policy.
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The first thing I check is whether the business actually knows if asbestos is present. The template covers both owned and leased buildings, and the approach differs. For owned buildings, the responsible person arranges the survey. For leased buildings, they approach the landlord for the results. I want to see that one of these has happened and that the outcome is recorded.
The action plan section matters. A survey without follow-through is worse than useless because it creates a false sense of compliance. If the survey recommends removal, I want to see a date for removal. If it recommends labelling, I want to see labels in place. If it recommends management in situ, I want to see a monitoring schedule.
The workforce awareness section is the one that protects people day to day. Your staff need to know three things: where asbestos is in the building, what it looks like, and that they must not disturb it under any circumstances. If a team member needs to drill a hole, hang a bracket, or run a cable, they need to check the asbestos register first.
Common mistakes I see:
The most common gap is leased buildings where nobody has asked the landlord for survey information. The template covers this scenario, including what to do if the landlord refuses, but I still find businesses occupying pre-2000 buildings with no idea whether asbestos is present. The duty doesn't disappear because you don't own the building.
I also see businesses that have had a survey done but haven't addressed the recommendations. The template requires responsible persons to address the action plan in line with recommended timescales. Filing the survey and forgetting about it is a compliance failure, and it's the first thing an HSE inspector will check.
The third mistake is treating this as a one-off exercise. The template includes monitoring and review of areas where ACMs are present. Asbestos in good condition today can deteriorate, get knocked, or be disturbed by unplanned maintenance. Regular checks catch problems before they become exposure incidents.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.