Rita Donaghy's 96-page report setting out a raft of ideas for Government to improve health and safety in Construction manages to deliver a long list of both contentious and well-intentioned recommendations.
In one sense it formally airs familiar ideas that have been circulating for while.
Rightly, it recognises five-years are too long a time for families to weight for a verdict on why the father or son was killed.
There are also sensible ideas about putting some of the onus on workers to accept they have a duty to themselves to act responsibly.
Most contentious of them all is the proposal to extend gangmasters registration legislation to construction. This misses a fundamental point. The industry is not treating it casual workers like Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers. Yes conditions were once a disgrace in some quarters, but the industry has come a long way since the bad old days.
Extra health and safety red tape is not what is needed. The emphasis must turn to enforcement. Time and effort needs to be directed at the rogue firms, on policing the existing regulations and publishing the duties that workers, managers and directors alike must fulfil.
The report One Death is Too Many is a jamboree bag of promising ideas, but fails to deliver the big idea that the industry could rally around as it works to improve both the safety and health of the workforce.
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Comments (1)
As Vice President of IDE I am often asked to comment on an accident within demolition and inevitably that accident involves an untrained workforce carrying out demolition for an uneducated client who does not, or does not want to, understand their duties under CDM 2007.
And, furthermore, who refused to accept a price from a demolition contractor who had a fully trained workforce, new equipment and could demonstrate competence under CDM 2007 section 7 because the price was higher than another company who had not bothered to train their workers.
Is it any wonder then that accidents happen? CDM was revised to make clients more accountable but at the end of the day we often find that to prequal for a job we have to fill in reams of paper to confirm our competence, only to find that the job was let to the "mate of the QS" as his price was better.
In demolition use experts or accidents can happen quicker than you realise and any life lost is one too many.
The answer to the problem is better education of the workforce and clients,coupled with additional enforcement from HSE, high fines and a few custodial sentances then we are making real progress.
For a list of competent demolition contractors visit the NFDC website www.demolition-nfdc.com or for competent demolition engineers visit www.ide.org.uk.
Get piece of mind when doing demolition by employing a professional.
John Woodward FIDE,MaPS,MIConstM,
Posted by John Woodward | July 22, 2009 2:04 PM
Posted on July 22, 2009 14:04