If employees are under stress it can lead to all sorts of issues impacting on the individuals concerned, colleagues, and the organisation. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) are ... ...

My employer wants to undertake a H&S risk assessment of my workplace but as I am severely visually impaired he feels he does not have enough knowledge to do this properly. Can you advise? I work in a fairly standard office environment with no major hazards.

A group of volunteers are organising a sponsored walk to support our charity. In the past they have had 1st Aid cover, but they are finding it difficult to find organisations willing to do this. Also those that are available have increased their charges significantly and the group are concerned that paying for 1st Aid cover could significantly increase costs to put the event on and therefore make the event pointless.

Are groups legally obliged to provide 1st Aid cover?

If in previous communications they indicated that there would be 1st Aid cover - what would the legal issues be if they did not provide cover this time?

We are being bombarded with offers for fire safety training at the moment, each citing new regulations - the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Could you please clarify the requirement placed on small organisations for providing fire awareness training for staff and appointing a fire marshall. Thanks.

Please could you help with this query from one of our member halls: We have been informed that the police want the Village Association to have a risk assesment in place for the Village Day in future following the disaster in Chester-le Street when one of the attractions blew away.Do you have any pro forma risk assesments we could peruse just to get ideas of what to include /not include.

Please could you advise us on the legislation for electrical checks for village halls. We were under the impression that halls needed a major electrical check every five years and PAT testing carried out annually. A local electrician however has told one of our village halls that they need an annual check of the village halls electrics. Please can you clarify!

Most of my staff are not defined as VDU users as they do not spend the majority of their day using the PC. However, the Finance Manager is defined as a VDU user. She is currently on maternity leave and has asked me to pay the cost of her eye exam (as defined in the legislation for VDU users). As she has not used a VDU since August 2007 when her maternity leave started, I do not think she is currently considered a "VDU user" and so does not qualify for a free eye test. However, I also know that staff on maternity leave should not be discriminated against in any respect. Despite this, I still cannot see that she can be consider a VDU user in need of a test when she isn't at work. Can you advise please?

I am a board member of an arts organisation. As part of our service people can pay to become "members" which allows them to use our facilities, studios & get technical support from our staff. A gentleman has approached us to become a member. However, members of staff have heard from other artists/arts organisations in the area & other studio members that he has a history of being violent (a colleague from another organisation has informed us that he has threatened her with a knife in the past) & has some mental health problems, presumed to be schizophrenia.

This has raised major concerns, particularly in relation to the safety of our staff & other studio & gallery users. However, we are also very conscious that as an open access organisation with broadly charitable governing documents (although we are a company limited by guarantee we are not a charity) we have to be careful that we are not seen to be disciminatory. At the moment, staff are able to stall him as to become a member he has to take part in an induction course & at the moment there are no spaces available on the courses.

So the key questions:

1. Is there any way that we can refuse membership to this person on the basis of the information (which I guess legally is just 'hearsay') which we have been provided by colleagues we trust? I presume we can't but would welcome any suggestions if this is possible, as our staff are very nervous (to the point of being frightened) about this person becoming a regular user of the studio or even having to deal with him at all (as a note - being a studio user is different to just coming in to look at the gallery as there are a range of chemicals & equipment which could be dangerous & there is much more one to one contact between staff & "members")

2. We really need to put some procedures in place which will help turn this into a broad approach to everyone rather than an issue with an 'indidivual' - however having been an assessor for Lottery grants I recall turning down (point blank) applications from organisations with badly written policies which makes them look like they are 'a mates club' Any suggestions on some good policies we can put in place which will help us in this situation but not make us appear discriminatory?

Hope this makes sense (turned out a bit long & gabled). Thanks for your help

We are an organisation that provides opportunities for teachers, creative practitioners and young people to work together to explore their creativity and creative skills.

Some of our work involves running events and courses at our base and at external locations e.g village halls as well as at schools.

Should we have a trained first aider present at these events? And if so, should the external venue provide one or is it our responsibility to have one amongst our staff who can be present at the event?

We have a contract with the local authority to supply a vehicle and driver for one of their Day Centres.

Of late we have had problems with one male passenger who is rude and aggressive to the female driver. His behaviour upsets others on the bus as well. We have said if this continues we will refuse to transport him.

The authority has told us the problem is that he doesn't relate well to women and we must put a male driver on the bus. All other passengers are happy with the current driver and I have said under equality laws I do not believe I should accomodate them on a matter of gender. Also we could not do a direct 'swap of drivers' without reducing the ladies hours.

Am I right to stand my ground?