When the Emergency Services are required to restore order due to an incident involving Hazardous Material under the aegis of ADR (and IMDG), the Incident Commander is reliant on technical information from the Consignors’ Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) associated with the product and situation at the incident site. Many of my colleagues within the Fire and Rescue service, as well as the Police, Highways Agency, Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Health and Safety Executive et al. have become qualified and registered Dangerous Goods Safety Advisors because Hazmat Incidents can not only occur at a (publicly restricted) production or warehousing site but also on a location on a public highway, a railway location, a seaport or airport or any location accessible to the general populace.
In my professional opinion, the Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor Qualification is an excellent resource for those of us tasked to manage incidents involving Hazardous Material or Dangerous Goods in order to restore order, protecting the public and property.
As ADR 2023 comes into force, the remit of the DGSA has been broadened to encompass ‘consignors’ who may never physically encounter the Hazardous Material they are involved in shipping – so, Ali Karim provides helpful commentary in-concert with John Newsome (of Len Hall Chemical Consultants) on what the role of a Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor broadly entails.
Firstly, ADR is an Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It was originally known as the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road but the term ‘European’ was dropped in ADR 2021. This was not Brexit related, simply an acknowledgement that countries outside Europe are signatories to the agreement and the UK is one of those signatories.
ADR 2021 states in 1.8.3.1: Each undertaking, the activities of which include the consigning or the carriage of dangerous goods by road, or the related packing, loading, filling, or unloading shall appoint one or more safety advisers for the carriage of dangerous goods, responsible for helping to prevent the risks inherent in such activities with regard to persons, property, and the environment.
This encompasses consignors, freight forwarders, warehouse operators and manufacturers producing goods that will be collected from their sites/depots. They must have access to a qualified Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) to ensure that the ADR regulations are adhered to. The requirement for those who are only involved in consigning dangerous goods to appoint a Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser (not originally a requirement for consignors only) was introduced from 1 January 2019 in ADR 2019, but a transitional arrangement was put in place which gave affected parties an extended period until 31 December 2022 at the very latest to comply.
The role of a Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor
The requirement to appoint a DGSA first came about back in 1999 and since then, both the role and the regulations have become progressively more complex. In essence the role of the DGSA is to interpret the carriage regulations, to ensure systems are in place to manage the safe transport of dangerous goods, and to monitor those activities. However, as usual the devil is in the detail and we need to look at exactly what is required (and in many cases what is not required) in order to make some sense of it all.
Who needs to appoint a DGSA?
Each Operator whose activities include the carriage or the related packing, filling, loading or unloading of dangerous goods (and now the ‘office-only’ consignor) by road is required to appoint one or more dangerous goods safety advisers (DGSAs), responsible for helping prevent the risks inherent in such activities with regards to persons, property and the environment. There are similar requirements for Operators who are involved with the transport of dangerous goods via rail and inland waterways. For road, the exact details can be found in ADR section 1.8.3.1 but then this is where it starts getting complicated because in the next section of ADR 1.8.3.2 it allows certain exemptions from the requirement to appoint a DGSA, such as goods packed as limited quantities (LQ) or excepted quantities (EX) and goods exempted via special provisions. This is where we had a Catch-22 situation because if you don’t have a DGSA, how do you know if the exemptions apply or are relevant to you? And hence why the ADR regulations have been augmented to those businesses who consign goods from an ‘office-only’ environment.
What duties does the DGSA perform?
The role of the DGSA can be an internal or an external appointment. Many Operators use third-party qualified DGSA consultants as this is often a more cost-effective route particularly for smaller organisations. In order to qualify as a DGSA it is necessary to pass a series of examinations, which for anybody reading this article who may have gone down this route will appreciate, can be a challenging experience to say the least. There is quite a high failure rate and multiple attempts to achieve a pass are common but eventually, once qualified, the lucky candidate is awarded a DGSA certificate which is valid for five years. At this point you breathe a sigh of relief and commence your duties. ADR section 1.8.3.3 lists the main duties of the DGSA which are summarised as follows:
- Monitoring compliance with the requirements of the regulations
- Advising the Operator on the carriage of dangerous goods
- Preparing an annual report detailing the dangerous goods activities of the Operator which must be retained for at least five years
- Ensuring that systems, instructions or procedures are in place so that dangerous goods are correctly and safely packed, labelled, marked for transport and accompanied by appropriate dangerous goods documentation.
- Ensuring that all persons involved are provided with appropriate training and this is formally recorded
- Ensuring that appropriate emergency procedures are in place in the event of an incident or accident involving dangerous goods
- To provide assistance with the investigation and reporting of any serious incidents involving dangerous goods and to ensure that corrective measures are implemented to avoid a recurrence of any such incidents
- Ensuring systems are in place to assess and monitor any third-party contractors used in the carriage of dangerous goods, thus confirming any such contractors are suitably qualified and equipped for those purposes
- Ensuring that systems are in place so that dangerous goods are packed, filled, loaded and unloaded safely and within the requirements of the regulations
- Ensuring that systems are in place for the checking of documentation and safety equipment on board vehicles and to ensure such safety equipment is fit for purpose, within service date and meets the requirements of the regulations.
- Monitoring the need for or the implementation of a security plan if carriage involves high consequence dangerous goods (HCDG).
At this point you may think that is quite a daunting list but there are also several other things going on in the background which as a qualified DGSA you need to be aware of, and be able to advise on, because these can significantly impact on the ability to prepare or transport dangerous goods safely.
This is often an area where a DGSA employed directly by an Operator but with many other additional duties may struggle because there are a plethora of special agreements, exemptions and derogations hidden away in the background. Typically, a dedicated consultant DGSA should have a better understanding of these quirks of the regulations because this is their primary role and they tend to have greater exposure to these situations. For any organisations involved with multimodal transport operations, it is crucial to have a detailed and thorough understanding of the various modal regulations (most commonly IMDG regulations for sea transport and IATA/ICAO regulations for air transport) and to understand how they interact with each other.
Exemptions and derogations
If we concentrate on transport of dangerous goods by road within the United Kingdom, we must comply with the Carriage of Dangerous Goods and use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2009 (CDG 2009) as amended, and which apply to national carriage within Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In essence these regulations introduce ADR into the transport regulations, but they also introduce certain derogations or differences where whilst we may wish to adopt ADR for most dangerous goods activities, we are allowed to do things differently for national carriage. The most common example in CDG for national carriage is the marking of tankers using an emergency action code and contact telephone number which is not recognised in ADR.
Then we have a series of approved derogations for UK national carriage by road which are as diverse as special arrangements for the carriage of alcohol in wooden casks, final stage arrangements for retail distribution and arrangements for the carriage of clinical waste amongst others.
Within ADR itself there are a whole series of exemptions or special provisions which can be blanket exemptions (limited quantities, small loads or private use exemptions, for example). They can be special provisions specific to a particular UN number (carriage of UN 2794 lead acid type car batteries using special provision 598, or UN1044 fire extinguishers using special provision 594, for example).
And then we have a whole series of multilateral agreements which are normally time limited where certain signatories to the ADR regulations get together and with prior agreement decide on special transport arrangements between those parties.
Within the UK there are also a series of authorisations issued via the Department for Transport which permit deviation from ADR for national carriage. They normally have a start date and an end date and are in addition to the approved derogations mentioned earlier.
Being aware of, understanding and keeping up to date with all this legislation with the accompanying derogations, exemptions, multilateral agreements and authorisations is particularly challenging and is one of the most difficult tasks facing a DGSA. Remember ADR is formerly updated every two years, the latest being the upcoming ADR 2023.
This information is provided in good faith, but it is your legal responsibility to ensure you have checked your operational activity to ensure your organisation is in compliance with the augmented scope of ADR 2023.
If you work with hazardous materials in the ‘Blue Light’ services, then please consider qualifying as a DGSA.For more information, email ali.karim@adlerandallan.co.uk
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