Asbestos Management Surveys: What Duty Holders Need to Know

What is the duty to manage asbestos?

Any non-domestic building built before 2000 may contain asbestos-containing materials (ACMs), and Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012) places a legal duty on those responsible for maintaining such buildings to manage that risk. This "duty to manage" requires identifying where asbestos is, or is likely to be, assessing its condition, keeping records up to date, and making sure anyone who might disturb it, whether that's contractors, maintenance staff or tenants, has access to that information before starting work.

The duty is ongoing rather than a one-off exercise. HSE guidance (HSG264, "Asbestos: The Survey Guide") expects the management plan to be reviewed regularly and updated whenever the building changes, whether through refurbishment, a change of use, or simply the natural deterioration of materials over time.

Who counts as a duty holder?

Under CAR 2012, the duty holder is whoever has clear responsibility for maintenance and repair of the premises under a contract or tenancy agreement, typically the landlord. Where no such agreement exists, or it doesn't cover repair obligations, the duty falls to whoever is in control of the premises, which in practice is often the building owner.

For multi-let commercial buildings, this frequently means shared responsibility. A landlord may hold the duty for common areas such as corridors, plant rooms and roof voids, while individual tenants hold it within their own demised space if their lease makes them responsible for repairs there. Facilities managers acting on behalf of a landlord or owner don't become the duty holder themselves, but they usually carry the practical responsibility for making sure the legal duty is discharged.

Assuming someone else holds the duty is one of the most common compliance gaps we see, particularly in older multi-tenanted buildings where responsibilities have never been clearly documented.

Management survey vs refurbishment and demolition survey

The type of survey a building needs depends on what is planned for it.

A management survey is the baseline requirement for meeting the duty to manage. It is designed to locate, as far as reasonably practicable, the presence and extent of any suspected ACMs in the normal occupation and use of a building, using minimally intrusive inspection and sampling. It assesses the condition of any materials found and how likely they are to be disturbed, feeding directly into the risk assessment and management plan.

A refurbishment and demolition (R&D) survey is a different, more intrusive exercise, required before any refurbishment or demolition work takes place, even where a management survey has already been carried out. Because this type of work is likely to disturb the fabric of the building, including areas normally inaccessible, the survey needs to identify all ACMs in the area affected, using fully intrusive methods that may involve destructive inspection. Relying on an old management survey ahead of building works, rather than commissioning the correct R&D survey, is a frequent cause of accidental asbestos disturbance.

What should an asbestos management plan include?

A compliant management plan should go well beyond a list of survey findings. At a minimum, it should set out:

A register of all known, presumed and strongly presumed ACMs, with their location, condition and risk assessment recorded against each one. A documented plan of action for each material, whether that's ongoing monitoring, encapsulation or removal, with a clear rationale and timescale. Arrangements for communicating asbestos information to anyone who might disturb the fabric of the building before they start work. A nominated person responsible for keeping the plan current and for day-to-day management of the risk. A review schedule, so the plan is reassessed at defined intervals and whenever the condition of a material or the use of the building changes. Procedures for responding to an unplanned disturbance or discovery of suspected ACMs.

Where any of these elements is missing or out of date, the duty holder is exposed both to a genuine health risk and to enforcement action, since HSE inspectors will ask to see the management plan as evidence of compliance, not just the original survey report.

Why independent asbestos advice matters

The quality of an asbestos survey and management plan depends heavily on who produces it, and on whether that advice is genuinely independent. Some providers who carry out surveys also offer remediation and removal services, which creates an inherent conflict of interest: there is little incentive to recommend monitoring or encapsulation over more costly removal work when the same organisation stands to carry out the work it recommends.

ISHEM's survey and management plan work is entirely independent of any remediation activity. We have no commercial interest in whether a material is monitored, encapsulated or removed, so duty holders can be confident our recommendations are based solely on risk, not on what generates further work for us. For any duty holder reviewing their current arrangements, whether that means commissioning a first management survey or checking whether an existing one still stands up, independent advice is the surest way to know the recommendations in front of you reflect the actual risk in your building, and nothing else.