University pressure vessels and lifting equipment statutory inspections
On the 1st August 2022 British Engineering Services (BES) took over the contract from Bureau Veritas (BV) to carry out statutory inspections on all University pressure vessels under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations (PSSR) and Lifts and Lifting Equipment under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER).
The BES contract is huge and complex due to the thousands of assets, some owned and maintained by the University Estates Division and others by departments. It is expected a contract of this size and complexity will experience teething issues since the new company requires time to embed into the University and the University needs time to get used how the new company operates. However, transition to BES has been made more challenging given that latterly BV were unable to fulfil their contract due to a shortage of engineers. This resulted in a significant number of plant not available (PNA) certificates issued over the summer.
BES have therefore had to deal with all of these PNA assets in addition to business as usual work while familiarising themselves with our sites. Understandably, some departments remain frustrated by the long delays arising from the inspection of these now overdue assets. Realistically it will take several months for BES to inspect all the overdue assets. The good news is they are working closely with us to prioritise this work and are allocating extra resources when available. During this phase, please be patient, understanding and try to be as accommodating as possible when BES engineers need access to your department, especially when weekend work is proposed. Rest assured any weekend work will be arranged carefully.
While BES have completed passenger and goods lifts inspections extremely well and good feedback has been received, we are aware that departments have also reported problems when coordinating visits which require third party engineers to strip down pressure assets for BES inspection. BES operate differently from BV when arranging inspection dates and send emails to all lead departmental contacts 28 days before the intended inspection date. BES will assume the given date is acceptable unless the department contacts them to say otherwise. If no contact is made, further emails will be sent 21, 14 and 7 days prior to the date. Please do not ignore these emails since specific timing information will be given closer to the inspection date and the final email will provide a 2 hour BES appointment time. This scheduling is designed to reduce wasted waiting time and hopefully better co-ordination with your third party engineers. Where specific problems arise with engineers failing to arrive on time, please do let me know. We are working closely with BES to improve the co-ordination of inspection visits and anticipate that as BES engineers become more familiar with our sites and contacts, issues in this area will disappear.
It will take co-operation from all stakeholders to ensure the success of this complex contract and to ensure all pressure and lifting assets to remain compliant and in service at all times. Therefore, if you experience any problems, not already raised, please do contact me to ensure they are addressed.