Best practices

The situation is not quite as you see it MrJack96. I am not surprised you are being seen as a “jobsworth”, as you are effectively doing just that. In situations like this, you are not at the end of the chain of responsibility, and in fact, you can, and should, easily shift it elsewhere. This is done by reporting in writing to your supervisor or manager the details of the problem and ask them for clarification of what should be done about it. I suggest the best way to report is using the BS7671 inspection report form, you only need to fill in the parts relevant to the problem, sign and date it as the inspector, copy it, and send the original to the manager etc. Keep the copy, the original may be filed or lost and a question could be asked later!

It is worth noting that you need to be careful that your report is accurate, particularly measured values such as Zs and R1+R2, and you refer to the regulation and table numbers which are not complied with. In theory (and legally) your employer should have some kind of incident reporting scheme in place, and a mechanism to ensure that reports are dealt with properly.

As far as your actual worries go, the SWA armour should be fine as the CPC, its resistance is less than the conductors up to at least 50mm2 size if it is a BS type. The Zs max for 63A BS88s is 0.68 ohms for 5 seconds and 0.36 ohms for 0.4 seconds disconnection (Table 41-2 and 41-4), so you are about halfway between the two, about 3 seconds. The question to ask “is this a distribution circuit or a final circuit?”. This can be a bit tricky to answer, and really you need to know what the original EIC says. However, if there are any more CPDs in the circuit to the motor you probably fall under 5 seconds disconnection and you have not told us the size of the motor but I suspect it is less than 40kW, thus not consuming 63A! 

Thus your finding of “unsafe conditions” may well not be valid, the IR does not really matter and the disconnection of about 4 seconds (assuming your measurements are accurate, they may be quite a way out) may be quite valid if this is considered a distribution circuit. Did you disconnect the machine to get the IR? It is very likely that a piece of equipment can have a much lower value, and your BS7671 source is out of scope outside of the fixed wiring!

I have no idea of your level of experience, but you need to realise that safety is a matter for a chain of responsibility, which is fully explained in the relevant legislation. Your duty ends if you make a report to the next step of the chain for a decision, it is certainly not up to you to decide to stop a factory because you find a relatively minor problem. That is a decision well above your pay grade! Some others who also post here seem to have a problem with this as well, it is brought on by many tutors who have the same worry and do not understand the principles of H&S. We often use the car MOT as an example, the inspector will give you a list of any faults and if serious will suggest that you do not drive away, he will NOT try to hide the keys! You are in the same position, you advise the boss of problems, he will tell you to fix them or not, and if you are not happy get the ignore instruction in writing or see the next in the line above him. The last resort is given to you on the factories act notice that should be posted, it is the report number for the HSE, but you can always find the number on the net. Any action against you for the report will then be wrongful sanction or dismissal. That is the “non-jobsworth” route and much safer for you!

David CEng etc.

The situation is not quite as you see it MrJack96. I am not surprised you are being seen as a “jobsworth”, as you are effectively doing just that. In situations like this, you are not at the end of the chain of responsibility, and in fact, you can, and should, easily shift it elsewhere. This is done by reporting in writing to your supervisor or manager the details of the problem and ask them for clarification of what should be done about it. I suggest the best way to report is using the BS7671 inspection report form, you only need to fill in the parts relevant to the problem, sign and date it as the inspector, copy it, and send the original to the manager etc. Keep the copy, the original may be filed or lost and a question could be asked later!

It is worth noting that you need to be careful that your report is accurate, particularly measured values such as Zs and R1+R2, and you refer to the regulation and table numbers which are not complied with. In theory (and legally) your employer should have some kind of incident reporting scheme in place, and a mechanism to ensure that reports are dealt with properly.

As far as your actual worries go, the SWA armour should be fine as the CPC, its resistance is less than the conductors up to at least 50mm2 size if it is a BS type. The Zs max for 63A BS88s is 0.68 ohms for 5 seconds and 0.36 ohms for 0.4 seconds disconnection (Table 41-2 and 41-4), so you are about halfway between the two, about 3 seconds. The question to ask “is this a distribution circuit or a final circuit?”. This can be a bit tricky to answer, and really you need to know what the original EIC says. However, if there are any more CPDs in the circuit to the motor you probably fall under 5 seconds disconnection and you have not told us the size of the motor but I suspect it is less than 40kW, thus not consuming 63A! 

Thus your finding of “unsafe conditions” may well not be valid, the IR does not really matter and the disconnection of about 4 seconds (assuming your measurements are accurate, they may be quite a way out) may be quite valid if this is considered a distribution circuit. Did you disconnect the machine to get the IR? It is very likely that a piece of equipment can have a much lower value, and your BS7671 source is out of scope outside of the fixed wiring!

I have no idea of your level of experience, but you need to realise that safety is a matter for a chain of responsibility, which is fully explained in the relevant legislation. Your duty ends if you make a report to the next step of the chain for a decision, it is certainly not up to you to decide to stop a factory because you find a relatively minor problem. That is a decision well above your pay grade! Some others who also post here seem to have a problem with this as well, it is brought on by many tutors who have the same worry and do not understand the principles of H&S. We often use the car MOT as an example, the inspector will give you a list of any faults and if serious will suggest that you do not drive away, he will NOT try to hide the keys! You are in the same position, you advise the boss of problems, he will tell you to fix them or not, and if you are not happy get the ignore instruction in writing or see the next in the line above him. The last resort is given to you on the factories act notice that should be posted, it is the report number for the HSE, but you can always find the number on the net. Any action against you for the report will then be wrongful sanction or dismissal. That is the “non-jobsworth” route and much safer for you!

David CEng etc.