Construction Sites HSE Inspections

Nearly one quarter of the construction sites recently visited by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) failed safety checks.

They carried out checks at 2014 construction sites involving 2414 contractors as part of an intensive inspection campaign aimed at reducing death and injury in one of Britain's most dangerous industries.

Particular attention was given to work activities that involved work at height and that it was being done safely and that the sites were showing signs of good housekeeping. A total of 691 enforcement notices were issued at 470 sites.  In 359 instances immediate prohibition notices were issued for either unsafe work being carried out at height or where ‘sites lacked good order’.
 

Working being carried out at height

The majority of all notices issued related to unsafe work being carried out at height.

The HSE's Chief Inspector for Construction, said:

"While it is encouraging that many small construction firms have got their act together and are giving health and safety the priority it needs, the fact that our inspectors needed to take enforcement action on almost a quarter of sites, and on a similar proportion of contractors, is a matter of serious concern."

"There are still a small number of employers or contractors who continue to put their own and other people's health and safety at risk. This is unacceptable. I want to make it clear to these operators that we will not hesitate to take action where standards of health and safety are endangering workers lives and livelihoods."

Last year 24 of the 59 worker deaths in construction were caused by a fall from height. A further 4000 major injuries such as broken bones or fractured skulls were reported by the construction industry, half of which involved a fall from below head height or tripping over materials on walkways.

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to all work at height where there is a risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury. They place duties on employers, the self-employed, and any person who controls the work of others (e.g. facilities managers or building owners who may contract others to work at height) to the extent they control the work.

As an employer you must do all that is reasonably practicable to prevent anyone falling.

HSE Prosecutions Examples;

• A construction company based in Suffolk, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £7,076 following an incident involving one of its employees. On Christmas Eve of 2008, a contractor from Sudbury, was working on a factory roof in Hertfordshire during the course of his employment. 
  
  Unfortunately, he fell through a factory roof light on the building, which caused him to fall seven metres to the ground below. In the process, he hit a gantry crane and landed on machinery, all of which caused him to sustain a fractured vertebrae among other injuries.  Following the fall he has undergone extensive medical treatment and remains off work as a result of his injuries.
   
• An engineering service company based in Sheffield has been fined £1,000 and was ordered to pay costs of £2,125.20 at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates Court after an incident involving one of its workers. As the incident involved a fall from height due to insufficient safety measures.
  
  The Company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive and pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which states: "Every employer shall ensure that, suitable and sufficient measures are in place to prevent, as far as reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury". The court heard that in August 2008 the Company had been contracted to complete roofing on a 'lean to' building in a compound.  A worker  was required to fix sheets to the ridge of the fabricated frame when he fell almost four metres to the ground.
   
• A plant hire company has been fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £15,698.30 in costs at Maidstone Crown Court after pleading guilty to breaching statutory health and safety law. The Company admitted a breach of section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which provides that it "shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees".
  The fine follows an accident involving a fitter who workedfor the company at its depot in Maidstone. Tragically, the fitter, whose job it was to prepare the accommodation units hired out to other companies, died on the 16th August 2006 after climbing onto two vertically stacked units to attach lifting chains before falling more than five metres.
  
  Upon investigating the incident, the Health and Safety Executive found that he had not used a safety harness and inertia reel line in order to secure the lifting chains. It was  Company policy to ensure that such safety equipment was in place for working on top of the accommodation units; however, the Health and Safety Executive found that workers at the depot neither knew of the rules nor had been issued with the necessary equipment. As such, the Company had breached its own rules on health and safety at the site.