Asbestos Licensing

Not all Asbestos companies hold the same level of asbestos licensing. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has an extensive and exhaustive process that all Asbestos removal companies are required to adhere to before the HSE determines the level of asbestos licensing that they grant to the individual applicants.

The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has a dedicated team that police and assess the asbestos licensing for the HSE, this team is called the Asbestos Licensing Unit(ALU) and the ALU has been given authority from HSE to grant, amend or revoke licences under CAR2012. The responsibility to carry out this function lies with the Head of ALU.

All New license applications are assessed by the asbestos licensing principal inspectors (ALPI), these inspectors, once the license has been issued then the responsibility for maintaining the standards falls to the standard inspectors.

The monitoring process as described by the HSE is a followed;

“The greater degree of regulatory intervention required of a permissioning regime
means that licence holders will receive more inspections than they would if they
were not licensed. All licensed jobs are notifiable and are liable to be inspected by
the relevant enforcing authority (HSE or local authorities). ALU will monitor the
performance of licence holders using information from these inspections and other
sources.
Following inspections of their work, inspectors’ reports are received and
considered by ALU. Any action will be made in liaison with the relevant ALPI and
inspectors. Where appropriate, the licence holder will be contacted. This will
normally be because ALU has concerns about the licence holder’s performance.
ALU’s actions include:
■ sending warning letters;
■ amending licences, and
■ revoking licences.
Sending warning letters will highlight concerns. Licence holders are expected to
act on these letters as failure to deal with concerns can lead to licence action.
Licence action includes amendments to and revocation of a licence. Where
appropriate licence action can be taken with no prior warning letter.“

If the asbestos operator has failed to respond to the HSE, then that contractor will be a Priority visit contractor (PVC).

Safeline Environmental is pleased to confirm that they have the longest licence issue available, 3 years, this is the gold standard.