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David Price
Member - 84 posts
When are the HSE ever going to learn, why are they shocked that sites are so bad? Most building sites these days are an accident waiting to happen, but with tighter deadlines and even tighter budgets, there is no option but to cut corners.
And it's not just building sites, drive through London early on any given weekday, and there are lone window cleaners balancing on ladders and building window cills, without a thought of what would happen if they fell.
Where are the HSE at 6am when all this is going on,? Also Scaffolders who still walk around on newly constructed scaffolding with their safety harness hook, not hooked on to something that could help them in the event of a fall, but hooked to the very harness that they are wearing?
The HSE must realise that all accidents don't always happen between 9 & 5 when they are in the office, but 24hrs a day. Come on HSE drive around London and see what you find, watch scaffolders doing death defying balancing acts whilst harnessed to themselves, all the contractors in the country who ignore Health & Safety know that the chance of them being caught is very slim, and it is all to easy to walk into a large building site and catch them out. But there are thousands of small contractors who flout the law everyday, and they are getting away with it scott free.
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Pasc Ruggiero CFIOSH, FIIRSM
Member - 49 posts
David,
I agree completely and ANYONE can see the same (and more) transgressions throughout the UK. Enforcement notices just ‘say’ to the law breaker ‘we have caught you, but we are not going to penalise you and all you are required to do is what you should have been doing all along’. Others see this and conclude that they need not comply until they are caught. I also do not understand why HSE draw attention, in press releases, to a notice issued by them prior to a fatality. In many cases they could have taken a prosecution and this also makes them liable (morally only because of the protection afforded to them in the HSWA74!).
According to TUC Risks Bulletin 357 (24 May ’08), the HSE under spent by £12M in 07/08. We should ask why they did not “want” more inspectors – knowing how poor compliance is. What we “need” is more prosecutions. This can be achieved using existing resources which should be diverted from PR to IN DEPTH unannounced inspections.
The recent announcement to employ more inspector will not change anything without a change of culture/direction.
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Stephen Smith
Member - 12 posts
Totally agree with both of you.
Contractors and builders see the risk of getting caught and the following penalty is low to nil. Therefore they undertake their own version of a risk assessment (ie will I get caught) and just get on with it.
More visible on the ground inspection/instruction is required from the HSE.
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Phill S
Member - 49 posts
The secondary problem is that, because of the comparative lack of action by bodies such as HSE, a lot of companies are very willing to allow the risks to continue, and some actively encourage breaking of the law.
To them it is 'cost-effective' to do nothing, and should an accident happen to get lots of people in suits holding clipboards to engage in an internal enquiry, as if to say "sorry HSE, but we really do care, look ... we have clipboards!"
But, from the other perspective, keeping up with all H&S is time consuming and costly, its a matter of keeping a balance between overkill and overspend.
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Nina Powell
Member - 3 posts
I may get shot down in flames here!! but something I strongly believe is that some of the bigger companies look at it in the way that the fines they would have to pay are often so trivial that they are better off getting caught instead of ensuring the money goes into Health and Safety in the first place! they dont seem to think of what it will do to their name when bidding for business.
I have never experienced an HSE Inspector turning up unannounced, and nor have any of my colleagues. There needs to be more inspectors and more routine inspections and definately more night inspections, the analysis that came out of our monitoring showed that most accidents happened at night!
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Geoff Porteous
Member - 28 posts
I must disagree with Nina it is the big companies that lead the way in construction, they have dedicated trained Safety advisors, they train and inform workers etc, etc, because they have the money and turnover to do it, also their CEO's and controlling minds are more than aware of the Corporate manslaughter legislation that could put them as individuals in jail, the blatant transgressors are the small and medium size companies who's financial position is less robust, they cut the corners and take the chances, but you can't hide a FATALITY.
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janet burton
Member - 63 posts
Re the scaffolding issue, I quite agree that idiots swan around without clipping on. My husband, a site manager, fired a worker he saw on a roof doing this. He had the man's gang boss and the union in the office objecting, saying a warning was more appropriate, but he was adamant - the man would no longer be employed by the company because he was endangering both himself and the company's safety record by not following explicit instructions on safety procedures.
It raised a lot of bad feeling instead of respect - but it meant everyone knew he took safety seriously - unlike the workers and the union, apparently.
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