Simon Richmond, Senior Technical Officer
Thank you to everyone who completed our short survey on the Association’s current provision of technical guidance – the Industry Code of Practice for Arboriculture: Tree work at height (ICoP), the suite of Technical Guides (TGs) and the Safety Guides (SGs).
The idea behind this survey was to get an overview of how this guidance is regarded in general and to invite comment on particular areas that may require improvement. We received over 50 responses, which is not an overwhelming number but we’re really grateful to those that contributed and particularly to the dozen or so who offered to be further involved in the revision process.
The survey questions were pretty simple. They were designed to capture some basic demographic info and then asked for overall opinions about the usefulness of the ICoP, the TGs and
the SGs. Where respondents thought improvements should be made, they had the opportunity to specify why, what and how. Overall, the responses were extremely positive.
ICOP
98% of respondents said there is a need for the ICoP, with the vast majority saying it meets the needs of industry. There were some useful proposals for improving format and readability.
Technical and Safety Guides
25% said that some important arboricultural content is not covered in the TGs. This included machinery use (chippers, stump grinders, tree shears and grapple saws, etc.). In terms of improvements, the greatest need appeared to be in TG1. However, among those who raised issues about this guide, around 20% of respondents were concerned about the introduction of the requirements for use of a backup when climbing. There were a number of requests to redesign the Safety Guides (SGs) to make them more concise and easier to access. This was a consistent message throughout the comments from some – more/bigger images, less detailed content. However, this was countered by others requesting more detail!
The revision team will now work through all the written comments to ensure we capture all suggestions, and while we will not be able to satisfy all contradicting recommendations, we will do our best to revise the documents to reflect the majority views expressed.
This article was taken from Issue 205 Summer 2024 of the ARB Magazine, which is available to view free to members by simply logging in to the website and viewing your profile area.