What they are, and where they sit
The full title is the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, and the text is at legislation.gov.uk. They replaced the 1999 regulations, which replaced 1994, which replaced the original 1988 set — which is why old documentation in a firm's files may cite a year that no longer applies.
They are supported by an Approved Code of Practice. An ACOP has a particular legal status: follow it and you are normally doing enough to comply; depart from it and you must be able to show that what you did was at least as effective.
Read what COSHH is first if you want the shape of it rather than the duties one by one.
The regulations that carry the duties
- Regulation 6 — assessment
- An employer must not carry out work liable to expose employees to a substance hazardous to health without a suitable and sufficient assessment first, reviewed regularly and whenever it may no longer be valid. See how an assessment works.
- Regulation 7 — prevention or control
- Exposure must be prevented, or where that is not reasonably practicable, adequately controlled. The regulation sets out the order: eliminate and substitute before engineering control, engineering control before ways of working, and personal protective equipment last.
- Regulation 8 — use of controls
- The employer takes all reasonable steps to ensure controls are properly used; the employee uses them and reports defects. A control nobody uses is not a control.
- Regulation 9 — maintenance, examination and test
- Controls are kept in efficient working order and in good repair. Local exhaust ventilation gets a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the record is kept for five years.
- Regulation 10 — monitoring exposure
- Where the assessment says it is needed to check control is adequate, or where Schedule 5 names the substance and process. Records kept for five years, or forty where they identify an individual.
- Regulation 11 — health surveillance
- Where there is a substance and process from Schedule 6, or an identifiable disease or effect with a valid detection technique and a reasonable likelihood of it occurring. Health records kept for forty years.
- Regulation 12 — information, instruction and training
- The people exposed are told the risks, the precautions, the results of monitoring and the collective results of surveillance. See COSHH training.
- Regulation 13 — accidents and emergencies
- Procedures, information and warning systems for spills, leaks and losses of containment, in place before they are needed.
How long records have to be kept
Three periods, and they are worth knowing because they are longer than most filing habits.
It is the forty-year figure that tells you what these regulations are really about. A record kept that long is not for an inspector — it is for someone trying to establish, decades later, what a person was exposed to.
What the regulations exclude
Regulation 5 carves out the substances covered elsewhere. Asbestos falls under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and lead under the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002.
A substance hazardous only because it is flammable, explosive or at high pressure is DSEAR's, and a substance administered in the course of medical treatment is out. Radioactive substances have their own regime.
None of these exclusions makes a substance less dangerous. They decide which set of regulations you are working to — which is why guessing wrong is worse than not knowing.
Why they are worth following on their own terms
Regulations get followed for three reasons, and the weakest is enforcement. Yes, they are enforceable; yes, an inspector can stop the work. If that is the only reason a firm does it, the paperwork will be exactly good enough to survive an inspection and no better, which is a lot of effort for no protection.
The second reason is commercial and it is real. Prequalification asks for the assessments, main contractors ask at onboarding, and a firm that can produce them in an afternoon wins work that a firm which cannot does not.
The third reason is the one that actually justifies the regulations existing. The harm they exist to prevent is slow, invisible while it is happening, and permanent when it arrives. Nobody notices the day they breathe too much silica. They notice fifteen years later, and by then the assessment that would have put water on the cutter is a piece of paper nobody wrote.
That is the honest argument, and it is not a compliance argument at all: the regulations describe what a careful firm would do anyway, written down so it happens on the days when nobody is being careful.
Questions people ask
- What are the COSHH Regulations 2002?
- A statutory instrument, SI 2002/2677, made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. They require employers to assess the risk from substances hazardous to health and to prevent or adequately control exposure to them.
- How many COSHH regulations are there?
- Twenty-three, plus schedules. About eight create the duties an ordinary employer meets in practice — assessment, prevention and control, use and maintenance of controls, monitoring, health surveillance, training, and emergencies.
- What is the difference between COSHH and the CLP Regulation?
- CLP governs how a substance is classified, labelled and packaged — the hazard pictograms and statements. COSHH governs what an employer does about the risk of exposure at work. CLP tells you what it is; COSHH tells you what to do about it.
- How long do COSHH records have to be kept?
- Health records under regulation 11 and exposure monitoring records identifying an individual are kept for forty years. General monitoring records and LEV examination and test records are kept for five.
- Is the COSHH ACOP legally binding?
- An Approved Code of Practice has special status: follow it and you are normally doing enough to comply. You may depart from it, but you must be able to show what you did was at least as effective.