The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 — the duty behind every COSHH assessment

What it requires

The Regulations require an employer not to carry out work liable to expose any employee to a substance hazardous to health unless a suitable and sufficient assessment of that risk has been made, and the necessary control measures identified and put in place. That duty — assess, then control — is the legal basis for every COSHH assessment covered in our guide to COSHH.

They were made under the general regulation-making power in section 15 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, together with section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, and came into force on 21 November 2002, replacing earlier COSHH Regulations that had been in place since the late 1980s.

Approved Code of Practice and guidance

The Regulations are supported by an Approved Code of Practice, L5, published by the Health and Safety Executive. An ACOP has a particular legal standing under the 1974 Act: it is not itself the law, but a court may treat a failure to follow it as evidence of a breach of the Regulations unless the duty holder can show the requirement was met some other, equally effective way.

Scope and application

The Regulations extend to Great Britain — marked E+W+S in the official text — with a narrow Northern Ireland reference limited to ships. Northern Ireland has its own corresponding regime.

They apply wherever a hazardous substance, as the Regulations define it, is present and a person could be exposed to it in the course of work — chemicals, dusts, fumes, biological agents and the other categories our COSHH guide sets out — subject to the specific exclusions the Regulations themselves carry for substances covered by their own separate regimes, principally lead, asbestos and radioactive substances.

Status and currency

In force since 21 November 2002 and amended on a number of occasions since, including changes reflecting the retained EU chemicals framework following the UK's departure from the EU. As at the date this page was last checked, the official text carried no notice of outstanding effects not yet applied. legislation.gov.uk does not display an explicit "up to date with all changes known to be in force on" statement for this instrument on the page checked, so the date recorded here is our own verification date rather than a currency date stated by the source.