Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance the Health and Safety Executive issues on the safe usage of water-fed poles for window cleaning.

To help businesses comply with the law, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides general guidance on health and safety as well as targeted guidance for higher-risk industries and activities. HSE does not seek to provide guidance for all industries and activities as it is often the case that others are more knowledgeable or better placed to provide such guidance.

HSE produces generic guidance for the cleaning industry covering a range of topics such as manual handling, control of hazardous substances, and slips and trips, all of which have relevance to window cleaners. HSE does not however issue specific guidance on the safe usage of water-fed poles.

The window cleaning industry, in collaboration with HSE, has published two pieces of guidance for the safe use of water-fed poles: ‘Safety in window cleaning using Waterfed Pole Systems’ and ‘Window cleaning with water-fed poles’. Both are free to download from the website of the Federation of Window Cleaners (www.windowcleaning.org.uk).