DSE and temporary employees, employed by agencies

Re Tim's question - there is a piece of legislation that provides if such a temporary contract goes beyond four years, that the worker has the right to ask for a permanent contract. I think in your case, the worker would also need to infer a direct / implied employment contract with your company (which should be easy if done for four years).

With regards to agency and temporary staff, L26, the HSE guide "Work with display Screen equipment" clarifies the position as follows

Host employers are responsible for

• assessing the risks to agency workers
• ensure all workstations provided comply to minimum requirements
• ensure agency worker is able to take breaks from DSE work
• Provide training to agency works about risks, risk reduction, workstation setup, breaks and training

Employment business (Agencies) are responsible for providing

• eye sight tests (on request) to the agency staff that they employ
• H&S training
• information about eye test and training

In addition agencies are required to check that the host employers are carrying out their duties (as described above)

Equity & Law not unreasonable so, should try the 'reasonable person' common sense approach that would suggest agency, contract, supply workers should 'normally' be 'temporary' although, that may not always be the case so:

1. Focus on a good even 'OTT' induction package reinforcing the responsibilities of both parties in terms of identifying foreseeable risks and in the case of DSE operators especially VISUAL RISK (58% report Screen Fatigue - HSE RR561 2007).

So, include some questions on visual status & history: assuming the induction material includes instruction and confirmation that the individual knows how to and does set-up the DSE, brightness, contrast, font size etc for their comfort.

a. when did you last have an eye test ? (if not within last two years may have to consider risk of allowing individual to work on-screen without an eye test !)

b. do you normally ware glasses for reading ? (if so may need screen glasses and as any prescription glasses paid for by the employer belong to the employer may have not come with a their own screen glasses)

c. have you ever reported or have you ever experience any visual discomfort or fatigue when working on-screen for more than an hour a day ?

d. have you ever reported or have you ever experienced any (i'll lump them together) hand, wrist, neck, shoulder, back or leg pain ?

(I say 'leg' because recent research has identified immobility from sitting for prolonged periods provides similar risk of thrombosis to long haul flights)

One would not be able to 'assume' temporary staff come ready to work fully trained and/or risk assessed so unfortunately you will have to test that for yourselves by completing a thorough induction training & risk assessment.

Then whether just temporary or more sort of perminant they would just slot into standard routine and/or planned maintenance and risk assesssment schedule.

I would be very interested to know the answer to this question, we use a lot of temporary staff, some for a week at a time, others for months. We do include them in the online DSE assessments we carry out, but would be interested to know about the eye tests.

It would be interesting to know if such contractors are due any redundancy pay should their contract be extended to years rather than months.

We occasionally use what we term as "contractors", employees employed by specific outside agencies to fulfill roles for periods of 3 months. This period usually gets extended on a monthly basis to any period of time.
What liabilities under DSE do we have, and what liabilities to the employer have.
We always carry out a DSE assessment on everyone working at a VDU, but are we liable for paying eye tests? A full time employee with our organisation would expect to get free tests, or would the agency be liable for the test?

Many thanks,

Neil.