Over 75 delegates attended SGP Property & Facilities Management’s recent seminar organized in support of the European Week of Health & Safety. Taking up the theme of Risk Assessment, the free event held at Leicester Tigers Rugby Ground brought together a diverse series of expert speakers.  

With endorsement from the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management, the seminar covered a range of topical issues from Slips, Trips & Falls (Royal Mail, Case Study) presented by Keith Scott Group Head of Health & Safety at Royal Mail and Chairman of the IIRSM to Asbestos (The hidden killer) with Sarah Brown from the Health and Safety Executive giving a moving presentation on the HSE’s latest campaign. Other topics covered included Risk Assessment and the law, Asbestos Risk Assessment, Water Risk Management and A Practical Approach to Risk Assessment. The event concluded with an alternative approach to the HR Risk associated with redundancy and TUPE presented by SGP HR Director Adrian Berwick.

Following the close of the seminar, Peter Hall (Seminar Chair) and SGP Director Risk Management said, “The success of the event was down to the tremendous support of all the delegates who attended and the quality and diversity of the seminar subjects and speakers.

The European Week of Health & Safety aims to raise awareness of risk and provide information and practical advice that has a positive impact upon the workplace. SGP has supported this effort wholeheartedly and promoted a strong message to all those who are responsible for or carry out works within the workplace, Good Health is Good Business”.

A second seminar is planned for March. Please contact Peter Hall on peter.hall@sgp.co.uk if you would like to receive further details when they are available.

More and more company owners in Leicester are dumping expensive commercial premises in favour of running their business from home.
The trend has been seen by Leicester computer support company Ulysses IT, which says new technologies are freeing businesses from expensive buildings.
And the findings are backed up by a recent survey of more than 500 small businesses.
It discovered that two thirds of business owners were actively thinking of closing their premises to run their business from home.
The survey blames the credit crunch and rising cost of commercial  premises.
But the technical director of Ulysses IT, Peter Turner, said new technologies make it easier than ever to do business from virtually anywhere.
He said: "With mobile broadband you can now use a laptop anywhere virtually as fast as you can in an office. Mobile devices such as Blackberrys or PDAs allow you to deal with email on the move. And internet phones mean you can take and make business calls anywhere you have an internet connection.
"These tools have made it so easy to professionally operate a business anywhere, you can see the attraction of reducing the business's cost base significantly by dumping premises."
One in ten small businesses told the survey by O2 that they had chosen not to renew a lease in the last eight months, in order to work from home or remotely.
Of the two thirds that were planning to leave business premises, eight out of ten said they would do it to reduce costs.
Nearly half of Britain's four million small businesses are already run from home. It's thought this will rise to 60 per cent this year.
Peter added: "During a credit crunch, not having expensive premises could be the difference between surviving and thriving. And when times are good again, the reduced cost base means a lot more money in the pocket of the Leicester business owner."
Ulysses IT specialises in computer support for businesses locally.
The business was established in 1998 and operates as an outsourced IT department for clients, mostly on a pay as you go basis.ENDS

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