Personal Protective Equipment: Main General Duties
The Employer may need to do more than is required by the Particular General Duties and Specific Rules in order to comply with his main general duties, which are essentially to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of his employees, and to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons NOT in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.
Moreover, the employer has a general duty neither to levy nor permit to be levied on any employee of his any charge in respect of anything done or provided in pursuance of any specific requirement of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 as amended by the Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022, or other relevant statutory provisions.
Example:
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 as amended by the Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022 do not require the employer to provide high visibility clothing for self-employed contractors who carry out the same work alongside employees to whom he has issued such clothing as part of his safe system of work. Even the employer's particular general duties do not require him to provide high visibility clothing for self-employed contractors in these circumstances but, where the contractors have not provided their own high visibility clothing, the employer's main general duty towards non-employees can require him to provide the personal protective equipment if he continues using the contractors to do the work.