Category Archives: Industry

Don’t fall silent intiative

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An excellent and very important initiative from IOSH: The “Don’t Fall Silent” campaign addresses a critical and persistent issue in workplace safety. The focus on prevention and cultural change is particularly vital, as falls from height remain a leading cause of workplace fatalities, as the HSE’s provisional figures sadly confirm.

Here’s a brief summary of the campaign’s key messages and why each point is so crucial:

  • Planning: This is the foundation of all safe work. IOSH’s emphasis on only working at height when “absolutely necessary” aligns with the risk hierarchy of control. The best way to prevent a fall is to eliminate the need to work at height in the first place.
  • Competence: Proper training is essential, but a key element of this is ensuring workers are not just trained but also competent and confident in applying that training. Supervision is critical to ensuring that knowledge is put into practice correctly.
  • Equipment: The campaign highlights the need for not just having the right equipment but also ensuring it’s properly maintained. A harness or a guardrail system that isn’t inspected and in good condition can be as dangerous as having no equipment at all.
  • Culture: This is arguably the most challenging and most important aspect of the campaign. A positive safety culture is one where safety is seen as a shared value, not just a set of rules. When workers feel “empowered to speak up,” it means the organization values their input and won’t penalize them for raising concerns, which is a major factor in preventing accidents.
  • Collaboration: This point recognizes that safety is a collective effort. It’s not just the employer’s responsibility. It involves contractors, designers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies all working together to share knowledge and create a safer environment for everyone.

The campaign’s title, “Don’t Fall Silent,” is a powerful call to action that resonates with the need to actively and openly address these risks rather than accepting them as an unavoidable part of high-risk work. It’s a proactive approach that is well aligned with modern health and safety management.

Records form part of your arrangements

Communicate wisely – Health and Safety investigations dig deep

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Keep your communications professional and make sure you know where they are stored. Useful tips if you are ever on the sharp end of an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). 

Section 20 of the Health and Safety at Work act 1974 gives the HSE the power to “require any person to produce any books or documents… which are necessary for you to see for the purposes of your investigation”. 

This seems entirely reasonable if there has been an accident or incident worthy of an investigation, and indeed should be welcomed, not least for valuable lessons learnt. But, as an employer or employee, have you ever considered exactly what documents the HSE might be requiring from you, and have you thought how and where they should be stored so that you can comply easily with an inspector’s request? 

Most employers are aware where they store their Health and Safety policy, risk assessments and minutes of meetings such as safety forums or committees. But do you know where your WhatsApp safety chat is stored and uploaded? Could you put your hands on that memo on the intranet that updated the latest safety data sheet? 

More importantly, do you have good knowledge of any communication between your employees on Health and Safety issues which may be informally recorded in texts or emails without any consideration being given to them being read in “hindsight”.

Our basic advice is:  

  • Keep essential Health and Safety documents in one, easily accessed place, whether physically or online 
  • Be aware that your documents and communications may be subject of inspection and keep them current. 
  • Make sure you are actually doing what your documents say you do – if not, change your actions or the documents…  
  • Ensure your workforce are aware that their communications could one day be looked at by an external body and remind them to think before communicating and keep it strictly professional. Don’t forget that can include texts, chats, emails and social media posts. 

 For help and advice on any of your Health and Safety issues contact us. 

Fear of non-compliance on inspection

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A survey of 2,000 individuals who work in varied roles across a range of UK sectors has found 68% of respondents feel their business/organisation would likely not comply with on-the-spot Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspections. 

This is because they feel the business/organisation they work for doesn’t have the data to prove that its fixed and movable assets are managed and maintained to the required regulatory standards.

The article headline extract above makes a strong case to review your maintenance arrangements and record keeping.  The article is rather skewed towards digital asset management records, but the question stands – is your firm prepared to be inspected and would it be compliant?

If you are in doubt about your legal duties and responsibilities (such as suitability, maintenance, inspection, information and training…) then why not drop us a line.  Happy to provide pragmatic no-nonsense advice on an ad-hoc or retained basis.

Directors’ duties ACoP – Singapore

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A senior government minister in Singapore has issued a warning to company directors that they face prosecution for health and safety failures, as the government considers a new Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) on directors’ duties.

IOSH News

A spike in recent worker deaths in Singapore (31 in the first seven months of this year) will lead to government considering the imposition of a code of practice on company directors. Singapore’s working population is approx 3.6m and the death rate per 100,000 would be 0.83 were there to be no more this year.

Compare this with the current reducing trend of work related fatalities in the UK which was 0.41 for the previous year.

Does this mean that the UK health and safety regime and the duties of UK directors is about right?

If you wish to discuss whether or not your company is getting it right, please get in touch for a no-nonsense preagmatic chat.

New regs mean free PPE for casual workers

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From 6 April 2022 amended PPE regulations require employers to provide more of their workers with free PPE, if used.

Previously the 1992 PPE Regulations placed a duty on every employer in Great Britain to ensure that suitable PPE is provided to ‘employees’ who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work.

The new regulations, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (PPER 2022), extends that duty to workers who generally have a more casual employment relationship and work under a contract for service, officially known as “limb (b) workers”.

As with employees, if PPE is required, employers must ensure that workers have sufficient information, instruction and training on its use. Workers will have the duty to use the PPE in accordance with their training and instruction, and ensure it is returned to the storage area provided by their employer. Where an employer finds PPE to be necessary after a risk assessment they have a duty to provide it free of charge.

The changes do not apply to those who have a ‘self-employed’ status.

PPE is defined in the PPER 1992 and is unchanged in the amendment. It means ‘all equipment (including clothing affording protection against the weather) which is intended to be worn or held by a person at work and which protects the person against one or more risks to that person’s health or safety, and any addition or accessory designed to meet that objective’

PPER 2022 restate the 1992 Regulations which say that PPE should be regarded as the last resort to protect against risks to health and safety. Engineering controls and safe systems of work should be considered first.

For more information click here

Health and Safety Statistics

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Key figures for Great Britain (2017/18)

  • 1.4 million working people suffering from a work-related illness
  • 2,595 mesothelioma deaths due to past asbestos exposures (2016)
  • 144 workers killed at work
  • 555,000 injuries occurred at work according to the Labour Force Survey
  • 71,062 injuries to employees reported under RIDDOR
  • 30.7 million working days lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury
  • £15 billion estimated cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions (2016/17)

The statistics for 2017-8 can be downloaded from the HSE website and make interesting reading.

Of course by taking reasonable steps to comply with legislation and your moral duties your business need not form part of these costly statistics and flourish as a safe effective and efficient business.

Contact us for advice and guidance to help you comply.

2017 – 18 RIDDOR Headline figures

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Information from the Health and Safety Executive recently.

144 Workers killed in 2017/18 (RIDDOR)

Fatal injuries to workers by main industry

Amount of fatal injuries to workers divided by age

Main kinds of fatal accident for workers

Rate of fatal injury per 100,000 workers

Rate of fatal injury per 100,000 workers

In addition, 100 members of the public were killed due to work related activities in 2017/18

UK safety fines rose 80%

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… according to Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) injury and ill health statistics

A scary headline to make any boss take a long, hard look at Health and Safety arrangements in their company or organisation…

In 2016-17 – the first full year that the new sentencing guidelines for safety and health offences were in place – fines reached £69.9m compared with £38.8m for the same period a year earlier.

But it’s not all bad news. Whilst the fines handed to dutyholders found guilty of safety and health offences increased by 80% in the 12 months to the end of March 2017 there was a fall in the number of cases prosecuted.

Under the new guidelines, the level of fine corresponds to the offending organisation’s turnover. If convicted of a safety and health offence, large organisations that turn over more than £50m and fall into the “very high” culpability category could be fined up to £10m.

The HSE and local authorities also issued 11,913 enforcement notices in 2016-17, a 5% increase compared with the previous period when 11,380 were served.

It’s really good to see the number of cases prosecuted falling but we continue to urge everyone to make sure they avoid complacency in the workplace.

We are always happy to arrange an “anti-complacency” visit to your business or organisation, working with you to ensure all of your Health and Safety arrangements are in place and, more importantly, are working…

New regulations to include Events and Exhibitions

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The new Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM Regs) come into force in April.  Events and exhibitions of scale will fall within the scope of these regulations and the HSE is drafting guidance specifically for the events industry.  The draft regulations have been published, however the exact impact on our events and exhibitions industry is still taking shape.

We expect there to be better formalisation of the responsibilities of the client and their appointed organisers and/or main contractors.  For well run projects this should be a fairly simple matter to comply…

From the HSE:

The new CDM Regs come into force on 6 April 2015 and apply to all building and construction projects, regardless of the size, duration and nature of the work.

The main changes, outlined in general by the Health & Safety Executive, are as follows:

  • Principal designer. The replacement of CDM co-ordinator (under CDM 2007) by principal designer. This means that the responsibility for  coordination of the pre-construction phase – which is crucial to the management of any successful construction project – will rest with an existing member of the design team. 
  • Client. The new Regulations recognise the influence and importance of the client as the head of the supply chain and as the party best placed to set standards throughout a project 
  • Competence. By splitting ‘competence’ into its component parts of skills, knowledge, training and experience, and  – if they are an organisation – organisational capability, provides clarity for the industry to assess and demonstrate that construction project teams have the right attributes to deliver a healthy and safe project. 
  • The technical standards set out in Part 4 remain essentially unchanged from CDM 2007 and HSE’s targeting and enforcement policy, as a proportionate and modern regulator, also remains unchanged.

The Regulatory package

The new proposed Regulations and supporting guidance are all in draft form before they come into force and may be subject to changes. They offer duty holders the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the main requirements before they come into force.

Health and Safety update

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We recently gained a fascinating insight into the current and probable changes that are taking place with health and safety legislation and the work of the Health and Safety Executive.

Suffice to say with their budget being cut by the order of a third that the effect is best summed up as – fewer inspections, increased costs from interventions, jailing of senior management in prosecuted cases and higher profile/higher value prosecutions.

As an indication we understand that the HSE’s budget for FFI was about £30m – they only recovered a third of this so expect bigger fines to be levied. The FFI initiative is here to stay and may extend to local authority departments to engage in the interventions. The average fee for intervention was billed as approximately £490 but one case lead to a fee of £21,000.

Food for thought.

If you wish to talk about what it might mean for you please contact us.