Questions and Answers

Should I be concerned with what is happening at the United Nations Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (UNSCETDG) in respect of the published Recommendations and Model Regulations on TDG (Orange Book), and should I be monitoring its conclusions?

How much notice is an academy given by the Secretary of State if its funding agreement is to be terminated?

What is a pre-hearing review?

I am a newly qualified nursery practitioner and I am concerned about the new EYFS as I don’t really understand what the requirements will be for the specific area of learning called “expressive arts and design”.

Our lab contains a bottle of diethyl ether which stands on the shelf with other 1 litre solvent bottles. It is not used frequently but late one summer afternoon as I was about to leave, it just exploded. Glass and liquid went everywhere as other solvent bottles were damaged. What should I do?

Although we are primarily a freight transport company, we also run a small fleet of passenger-carrying vehicles. Some of our drivers hold both LGV and PCV licences and drive both types of vehicle. Do these drivers need to take two separate courses of Periodic Training for their Driver CPC qualification, or is the completion of one course of 35 hours’ training over the 5-year period acceptable?

The Independent Schools Council brought a case recently against the Charity Commission arguing that its guidance was not clear and placed too much emphasis on the provision of bursaries and free places, rather than other forms of benefit such as the sharing of resources. Is the guidance still valid, in light of the outcome of the case?

I too read the article Sharpening Time Management Skills and the subsequent question raised by another reader made the timetable clearer. But what would be helpful to me as a new manager would be a simple crib sheet of ideas.

We sometimes have difficulties with agency drivers who refuse to leave their analogue tachograph charts with us, when they finish their assignment at the end of the week.

The agencies we use also insist that their drivers take the charts with them. We have offered to give them photocopies of the charts but many of them insist on keeping the original charts. We are not happy with this as we have had instances, in the past, when charts have never been returned to us. Are we in our rights to keep the charts, providing we give copies to the agencies?

I was drying down some beakers containing concentrated nitric acid on the hot plate in the fume cupboard. I then went to have a quick tea break. When I came back, I noticed brown fumes in the lab, and a horrible smell. Maybe the fume cupboard stopped working or perhaps a beaker broke. What should I do?