St Joseph RC Church
Commercial Case Study
"Thank you for all your help over the years, we are really impressed with the service."
Rev Michael D Jones - Cathedral Dean and Parish Priest | St. Joseph’s, Ordsall
The Client
St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church is located in Ordsall, Salford. It is a Parish served from the Cathedral Church of St John the Evangelist in Salford. The current St Joseph’s was opened in 1902.
The Problem
Health and safety legislation applies to all places of religious worship. However, for a priest with a busy schedule, an ever-increasing workload and limited health and safety knowledge is often the case that not all the “required” activities are being carried out.
Coincide this with a reduction in the numbers of worshippers, resulting in decreasing budgets and the difficulty in ensuring compliance increase furthers. However, irrespective of the aforementioned, parishes still have the legal responsibility to make sure their buildings are safe for their priest, contractors and worshippers alike.
This problem was exasperated at St Joseph’s by the fact that the incoming Priest in 2016 had no information about any compliance.
Our Solution
Having facilitated the Diocese of Salford’s Schools Property Management Solutions Scheme in since 2012, Casserly Property Management were appointed to work with St Joseph’s in 2016 and to prepare and manage a maintenance schedule with the aim of offering the reassurance and confidence that everything was being done and the church were compliant with health and safety legislation.
There were numerous disciplines which needed to be identified and managed including:
- Fire Safety
- Electrical Safety
- Asbestos Management
- Water Management (Legionellosis)
- Gas Safety
- Glazing
- Accessibility
Once instructed, the first tasks were to commission a new Asbestos Management Survey, Fire Risk Assessment and Glazing Audit. Each report identified areas for improvement and “non-compliance”. Armed with this information the church was in a position to take a holistic approach ensuring their small budget was spread across a variety of areas undertaking urgent remedial works in order to minimise the risks going forward.
St Joseph’s also instructed Casserly Property Management to carry out their routine servicing of the buildings plant and equipment such as Lightning Conductors, Boiler Servicing etc… This has not only reduced the servicing costs for the church but it has also meant the priest was free to concentrate of his missionary work within the parish.
As part of the Casserly Property Management service, the buildings maintenance activities are managed through the EVERY Premises Management Software. This online software offers remote log-in for priests and their support staff and produces an audit trail of all activities undertaken, when they are completed, when they are next due, the costs and the “all important” service report. The software stores all the important information in one place and avoids trailing through files of paperwork each year. As well as saving time this also avoids problems in locating paperwork when priests move to another parish. This is particularly important in the modern era of priests managing multiple parishes.
Due to the success of the work undertaken at St Joseph’s RC Church, Casserly Property Management have now been asked to assist ensuring statutory compliance at the Cathedral Church of St John the Evangelist in Salford.
