When businessman Alan Dykes of Bristol-based Strachan and Henshaw was fined £30,000 plus £3,500 costs for failure to improve his filthy and dilapidated workplace toilets on 17 April 2010, the magistrates noted that it ‘would have been cheaper to have had an efficient cleaning system in place originally.’
The provision of ‘suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences’ is set out clearly in regulation 20 of the Workplace, Safety, Health and Welfare regulations 1992, with additional guidance provided by the Health and Safety Executive's L24, Workplace health, safety and welfare, approved code of practice and guidance. In a summary PDF, Welfare at work, guidance for employers on welfare provisions[1], the HSE explains that employers must provide:
- enough toilets and washbasins for those expected to use them – people should not have to queue for long periods to go to the toilet;
- where possible, separate facilities for men and women _ failing that, rooms with lockable doors;
- clean facilities to help achieve this walls and floors should preferably be tiled (or covered in suitable waterproof material) to make them easier to clean;
- a supply of toilet paper and, for female employees, a means of disposing of sanitary dressings;
- facilities that are well lit and ventilated;
- facilities with hot and cold running water;
- enough soap or other washing agents;
- a basin large enough to wash hands and forearms if necessary;
- a means for drying hands, e.g. paper towels or a hot air dryer; and
- showers where necessary, e.g. for particularly dirty work.
It also reminds employers that the needs of those with disabilities have to be ‘considered.’
However, Michelle Barkley from the British Toilet Association[2] makes the point that while amendments to building regulations require new buildings to make toilet provision in accordance with a new British Standard, BS 6465-1:2006, the unequal provision for men and women in UK workplaces still remains a problem. The Workplace Regulations ‘gives women far fewer appliances than men, to the extent that 50 women have fewer facilities than 30 men’, the reason being that ‘men get urinals as well as cubicles, it being forgotten that WCs are women’s urinals.’ An update to the HSE guidance is expected at the end of the year and the British Toilet Association encourages those with ‘strong feelings that women should have equal toilet provision in offices and other workplaces’ to lobby the HSE.
Another problem raised by the TUC in March 2010 was the basic right of workers to use the toilets without having to suffer the humiliation of requesting permission. It published a report, Give Us a (Loo) Break[3], saying that toilet breaks are: ‘not a luxury, but a basic human need, and employers who don't provide staff with toilet facilities are breaking the law. It finds examples of staff having to put their hands up to use the toilet, record the number of times they nip to the loo each day or travel a mile to pee.’
The TUC report was critical of employers who still believe that employees should go to the loo in their own time. Others plan work schedules that take no account of toilet breaks or allow a work culture to develop where use of the toilet whenever a worker requires it is frowned upon. The report noted that some workers had no reasonable access to the toilet and gave an example of a female firefighter who had to change her tampons in the back of a fire engine while her male colleagues stood guard outside. As a result of union pressure, a number of fire brigades have now introduced mobile welfare vehicles which have separate women and men's toilets.
The report also highlighted the problems facing call centre workers who are 'encouraged to drink lots of water to limit the strain on their voices, but discouraged from taking too many toilet breaks.'
TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O'Grady said: “Dickensian attitudes to toilet breaks have no place in the modern workplace. Employees should be free to go to the toilet in work time, and not have to raise their hands for permission as if they were back in school, or have their employers keep notes on how long or how often they go for. And when staff do get the loo, they have the right to expect clean, well-ventilated facilities."
The report calls not only for more strict enforcement by the HSE of the workplace regulations; but also a change in the law so that employees can ‘go to the toilet whenever they need to - so long as they are not endangering the safety of their colleagues, and in work rather than their own time.’
[1] www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg293.pdf
[2] www.britloos.co.uk/news/archive/2010/apr2010_8_2.php
[3] www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-17670-f0.cfm