Occupational risk prevention plan: mandatory from your first worker

Contents

• What is the prevention plan?
• Who is required to have one?
• What does it include?
• What do you risk if you do not have it?
• How Tranquilia generates it
• Frequently asked questions
• Official sources

What is the prevention plan?

It is the tool with which you build prevention into your company: who takes charge, how it is organised and what is done to avoid accidents and work-related illness. It is not a document you draw up once and leave in a drawer: it is the basis from which the risk assessment and the planning of measures follow.

Art. 16 LPRL describes it as the instrument for building prevention into "the whole set of activities and every level" of the company.

Who is required to have one?

Every company with at least one working person. There is no headcount floor below which you are off the hook: a company with a single employee is already covered. The smaller it is, the simpler the plan can be, but it has to exist.

Self-employed people with no workers under them have a different regime as regards themselves, but the moment they hire someone, they come squarely under the LPRL.

What does it include?

Under art. 16 LPRL and RD 39/1997, the plan sets out:

1. The identification of the company and its activity.
2. The organisational structure of prevention: who takes on what (the employer, designated workers, the prevention service).
3. How the risk assessment and the planning of measures fit together.
4. The resources you devote to prevention.

Two documents that the law singles out hang from that plan: the risk assessment and the planning of preventive activity.

What do you risk if you do not have it?

The Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social is the body that polices this. Not having the prevention plan, or the risk assessment, is one of the first things checked, and it is classified as a serious infringement under the rules on infringements in the labour and social security field (orden social). If an accident is involved as well, liability is aggravated.

We do not give an exact figure here because the penalty depends on the seriousness, on the risk created and on the circumstances, but it is worth knowing clearly: prevention infringements are among those with the widest financial range in employment law, and the most expensive moment to discover that you have no plan is right after an accident.

How Tranquilia generates it

From a questionnaire about your activity, your workforce and your premises, Tranquilia prepares the prevention plan with the structure required by art. 16 LPRL, ready for you to review and adapt to your case. If you are a gestoría (a Spanish administrative and payroll practice), you generate it for each client company on your books.

Frequently asked questions

Does a two-person company need a prevention plan?

Yes. The duty arises with the first worker, not with a minimum headcount. What changes is the complexity: a low-risk micro-business can have a much simpler plan, but it has to have one.

Can I do it myself or do I need a prevention service?

It depends on the size and the risk of your activity. In small, low-risk companies the employer can take on prevention personally if certain requirements are met; in other cases a designated worker or a prevention service is needed. The law sets out when each option applies.

Does the plan last for ever?

No. It is reviewed when working conditions change, after an accident or when new risks appear. A plan left untouched for years has usually stopped reflecting the reality of the company.

Official sources

• BOE — Ley 31/1995 de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales, articles 16, 23 and 47 to 49.
• BOE — RD 39/1997, Reglamento de los Servicios de Prevención.
• Instituto Nacional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo (INSST).

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General information on legislation. It does not replace advice from a lawyer or an analysis of your particular case. If in doubt, check with your prevention service or with a professional.