Health and Safety: construction deaths report findings

The government commissioned an independent inquiry into why construction kills so many people. Do you care enough to bother reading it?, wonders  Kristina Smith.

Two men were killed when a crane collapsed at a Battersea site in September 2006.

Why do so many people die each year while working on construction sites? Because we expect them to.

This is the uncomfortable core finding of an independent inquiry into the cause of fatalities in the construction industry.

"There is no sense of shock at the regular toll of fatalities in the industry. We should aim to raise the profile of these tragedies so that a construction fatality becomes socially unacceptable," says the chair of the inquiry Rita Donaghy, former chair of conciliation service ACAS and president of the TUC, in the report's summary.

Her argument is that this attitude to construction deaths starts with the government, who don't even consider the industry important enough to give it a dedicated minister, and permeates down through the judges who impose fines so meagre that they would deter no one, to society as a whole.

The inquiry was commissioned in December 2008 by the then Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions, James Purnell.

He was new to the post and perhaps shocked to find out that construction kills more than any other industry by a mile - although the official line is that: "This inquiry came out of discussions with the trade unions and the industry."

The inquiry was given a very tight programme, given the scope it required. During the short period afforded her, Donaghy reviewed existing research, attended industry meetings, and interviewed individuals, including bereaved families.

Three contributory reports were produced during the inquiry: a summary of existing knowledge and research on construction fatalities and a study of 28 construction deaths both conducted by the HSE; and research by Loughborough University into the wider causes of construction fatalities which also includes recommendations for action and best practice case studies from around the world. All make interesting - if lengthy - reading.

Many of the report's 28 recommendations aim to raise the low profile of construction deaths. One of the central ideas is to bring in new legislation - or alter existing law - to set out explicitly the duties on directors to plan, deliver, monitor and review good health and safety management systems.

Appropriate sentencing

And Donaghy says that clear guidelines must be set for the courts to ensure appropriate sentences are given.

Her argument is that although directors' duties are covered by several pieces of legislation, including the newly introduced Corporate Manslaughter Act and the Health and Safety (Offences) Act, the penalties imposed on those found guilty do not serve as a deterrent.

Frank Garnett, director of health and safety for BAM, who was interviewed by Donaghy for the inquiry, says that directors should be held responsible. "Companies like mine and people like me don't have a problem with this," he says. "It's only those turkeys who are not doing their jobs properly that do."

And he agrees that fines should be stiffer. "At the moment, we are talking about a £4,000 to £5,000 fine. That's peanuts to a director who has been putting a bit in the bank."

Willmott Dixon's group head of safety Jim Higham takes a similar stance. "I believe if a director is caught skimping on health and safety they should be absolutely pasted, whether financially or by a prison sentence. All of our directors are totally aware of their responsibilities."

Guidance published jointly by the Health and Safety Commission and Institute of Directors (IoD) in 2007 on directors' and board members' responsibilities has passed many by. Garnett carried out a survey of directors which revealed that 64% had never even heard of the document, let alone read it or acted on it.

Stephen Radcliffe, chief executive of the Construction Confederation, does not believe that new legislation is the answer, but says that the reference in the report to the low take-up of the IoD guidance struck a chord. "I think the law is pretty clear, it's just that the law is scattered about. There could be work to be done there in educating directors."

The most controversial recommendation - and therefore the one that has received the most press - is that the Gangmasters' Licensing Act, brought in after the death of Chinese cockle pickers in Morecombe Bay, be extended to construction.

Radcliffe insists this is unnecessary, arguing that it will be a source of more red tape with no resulting improvement in safety. Construction union UCATT, on the other hand, supports the move.

Higham thinks such a step would be unnecessary: "We don't need [the act] in construction. It does not work like that. It's not a case of people being used like the Chinese were at Morecombe. We are not talking about illegal immigrants; we are employing tradesmen coming legally from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania."

Another potentially contentious recommendation, which came out of Loughborough's discussions with industry, is that building control officers should take on the role of safety inspector on smaller jobs. It makes sense, says Donaghy, that while they are checking that a building will be safe once built they should check that the work is being done safely.

"And she suggests - somewhat optimistically - that this would need little extra resource as "this additional power would be very much with the grain of the building control surveyors' work" and that it would be paid for by clients.

Paul Everall, chief executive of LABC which represent local authority building control departments, gives the broad idea a cautious welcome. "On the face of it, it seems to have a lot or merit, but I'd need more time to think about it and discuss with others what the implications might be. It would be important that it did not detract from the current role of Building Control.

"And they could not take it on in addition to their current responsibilities without having more of them or the job being done in a different way."

Government gets a few raps on the knuckles. It should show its commitment to construction by appointing a full-time construction minister, says Donaghy. And it should be setting a good example on the projects it procures. Guidance, known as the Common Minimum Standards, from the Office of Government Commerce, which contains details on how to manage health and safety, is mandatory for Government Departments, but how they check on whether health and safety rules are being followed is patchy, the reports says.

And local authorities should be made to adhere to the standards too.

Report findings

Some have been disappointed by the findings of the report: there is nothing in here that the industry didn't already know.

But Dongahy's assertion that construction deaths should become as socially unacceptable as deaths caused by drink driving or not wearing seatbelts makes sense - and that the industry cannot achieve that change entirely by its own actions is worth considering.

The idea that construction firms don't care about deaths rankles with Radcliffe: "The thing that made me quite cross was the suggestion that the industry does not give a damn when people get killed.

"It affects the whole company. I think that was a bit insulting."

However, Donaghy's opinion was formed following her interviews with bereaved families who appear to have received no support from anywhere. Their experience is that contractors' legal teams, battling to save a firm's reputation, draw out the prosecution process to an unbearable number of years.

As for the the DWP's response - no longer under James Purnell - that will take time and does not promise to excite: "DWP will now be consulting with the Health and Safety Executive, the industry, trade unions and other relevant government departments to fully consider all the recommendations before responding later in the year," says the press office.

The HSE declined to comment on the report's findings at this point, saying it was a matter for the DWP.

In the meantime, Frank Garnett suggests that construction companies should read the report now and act on it. "Any company worth its salt will pick up this study and say 'where are we failing as an organisation?

"Perhaps we can target some of those failings within our own strategic planning'."

Read the HSE and Loughborough University reports at: www.hse.gov.uk/construction/inquiry.htm

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One Death Is Too Many: The recommendations

Rita Donaghy's report made 28 recommendations, including the following.

• Alter existing legislation or make new legislation which imposes specific duties on directors to ensure good H&S management through a framework of planning, delivering, monitoring and reviewing.
• Set clear sentencing guidelines for the courts so that the verdicts and levels of fine are appropriate.
• Extend the Building Regulations and the role of building control officers so that they become health and safety inspectors on small sites.
• Extend the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Regulations which require that all gangmasters be licensed to include construction.
• Investigate why there are such long built-in delays in the system for prosecuting construction fatalities.
• Appoint a full-time Minister for Construction to demonstrate the importance of construction.
• Extend mandatory guidelines relating to health and safety to cover local authorities as well as government departments - and ensure that they are being followed.
• Monitor the public sector on how health and safety standards are withheld and sanctioned if they fail.
• Agree one benchmark for the myriad pre-qualification schemes.
• Large companies should encourage more joint working with the trade unions, whose role in health and safety is unappreciated.
• HSE should do something to remedy the problem of some years that it has insufficient resources to carry out even the existing workload in London.
• HSE should look into prosecuting for unsafe practice, where no accident has occurred.

To see all the recommendations go to: www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm76/7657/7657.pdf