Rules for business premises in Spain
Occupational risk prevention plan
The occupational risk prevention plan is the document through which a Spanish employer builds health and safety into how it is run: who does what, with which procedures and with what resources. Art. 16 of Ley 31/1995 requires it from the first employee, and it rests on the risk assessment and prevention planning.
Also known asplan de prevención de riesgos laborales · health and safety plan · prevention plan · PRL
What it is exactly
Ley 31/1995, the Spanish Occupational Risk Prevention Act, requires prevention to be built into the management of the business “through the introduction and application of an occupational risk prevention plan”, covering the organisational structure, responsibilities, roles, practices, procedures, processes and resources needed (art. 16.1). The Prevention Services Regulation (Royal Decree 39/1997, known as RSP) adds that the plan is approved by management, taken on by the whole structure, known by the entire workforce and set down in a document available to the labour authority, the health authorities and the workers' representatives (art. 2.1 and 2.2).
Its two tools are the risk assessment and the planning of prevention work (art. 16.2). The assessment is carried out at the start and updated whenever working conditions change; the law does not set an interval in years.
An example: a bakery with eight employees, a bakehouse and a shop counter. Its plan says who handles prevention (the owner personally, a designated employee or an external prevention service), what the risks are from the oven, the dough mixer and the floury floor, and what is done about each. Since the regulation allows this to businesses with up to fifty employees that carry out none of the activities in its Annex I, the hazardous ones, it may combine the plan, the assessment and the planning into a single short document (RSP, art. 2.4).
Worth knowing
The plan is not the report handed over by the external prevention service. Hiring an external service supports the employer but does not release it from its duty (LPRL, art. 14.4): the plan belongs to the business and its people have to know it. Nor is there a headcount threshold; what changes with size and hazard level is how far it can be simplified (art. 16.2 bis). When other companies come onto your premises, the plan is completed by coordination of business activities.
Sources
Related terms
- Ley 2/2023 (whistleblower protection)Ley 2/2023 of 20 February is the Spanish whistleblower act: it protects people who report breaches of the law and requires private entities with fifty or more workers to have an internal reporting system (art. 10.1.a). The threshold is counted per entity, adding up all its sites, not per building.
- Coordination of business activities (CAE)Coordination of business activities (CAE) is the duty of companies and self-employed workers working at the same time on the same premises to cooperate on health and safety. The holder of the premises tells whoever comes in about its hazards and emergency arrangements (art. 24 LPRL and RD 171/2004).
- Right to disconnect (desconexión digital)The right to disconnect (desconexión digital) is an employee's right not to be contacted by email, phone or messaging outside working time, so that their rest, leave, holidays and privacy are respected. It is recognised by art. 88 of the LOPDGDD and art. 20 bis of Spain's Workers' Statute.