CPA Bulletin

44 CPA Bulletin > August 2020 www.cpa.uk.net Q&As: 3 Reading the CPA’s Consumer Conditions, I saw the following clause: NON-BUSINESS HIRE The Plant and Equipment is hired to you on the basis that it is used only for private or non- commercial use. You must not use the Plant and Equipment for commercial purposes. A large portion of our customers are small builders and landscaping firms. How are these types of companies covered under the above terms? Many CPA Members hire out their plant and equipment to both a business and to a consumer (a homeowner). If they are hiring out to a homeowner, which will be for the homeowner’s personal benefit, for non-commercial activities on their house or garden, then the CPA Member would use the CPA’s Consumer Conditions. Depending on whether an operator is supplied with the plant/equipment, would dictate whether the member uses the CPA Consumer Conditions for Plant supplied with an Operator or the CPA Consumer Conditions for Plant supplied without an Operator. If any business wants to hire plant and equipment from you, whether it is a small builder, landscape gardener, etc., then you would hire the plant/ equipment to them under the CPA’s Model Conditions. It does not matter whether an operator is supplied or not; you would still use these same terms. q A As CPA members, we incorporate your Model Conditions for our plant hire operations. At the moment they are only issued to our customers at their request. We would like to publish them on our website. We appreciate the ramifications of copyright, but does CPA allow its members to do this? To cover yourself you need to actually send the terms and conditions to your customers, especially new ones who have not hired from you before. By simply referring a new customer to your website will be insufficient should a contractual dispute arise. Once you have an established contractual arrangement with your customers in place - this is called “a course of trading”, then I would suggest re- sending them at least once a year, via blind-copy email, to all your existing customers. You will need to attach a full-sized version of the Model Conditions, and a reminder that these are the only terms you work to when hiring out your plant and equipment to them. Members can put the terms and conditions on to their website, but there is a danger if this is their only form of notifying their customers of the terms they work to. q A Please can you confirm what the CPA’s standard weekly hours are covered in the hire rate, if no extra hours have been agreed? Within clauses 1(h) and (i) of the CPA’s Model Conditions, the weekly hours stipulated are 39 hours. This is 8 hours Monday to Thursday and 7 hours for Friday. The hours are from 8.00 am to 4.30 pm (or till 3.30pm Friday). q A I am in the process of completing a customer’s ‘Supplier Questionnaire’, and they are asking for the following policies: • Health & Safety policy • Risk assessment • Environmental policy • Human Rights policy I do not have any of these, but wondered whether the CPA had any generic policies which addressed the above? I have spoken with my colleague Peter Brown regarding your query. I’m afraid we don’t have templates to do with safety policies and risk assessments, but you can download samples from the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk If you do have five employees or more, then you need to have a written safety policy and if you do qualify, to also have access to a health and safety advisor. This person can be internal to the organisation (although this can be the employer, if they have the requisite knowledge), or external. You may wish to consider contacting your insurance broker (and your insurance provider) if they can recommend an external individual or company to assist you. We don’t have anything on environmental policies, but Peter suggests you consider the CITB’s GE700 publication Construction Site Safety www.citb. co.uk/standards-and-delivering-training/health-and-safety-support- materials-and-forms/price-list-for-available-publications/ which includes an environmental management section. We also do not have any Human Rights policies. q A