CJ Construction Blog

For some time there has been a nagging fear that the big advances in attitudes to construction health and safety will fall victim to the downturn.

The evidence that good practice is being eroded by suicidal bidding is at best anecdotal, but several contractors have approached Contract Journal in recent weeks bitterly complaining that they are losing out to firms that have sprung up from nowhere.

They all complain they have spent a small fortune in recent years quite properly improving safety procedures and jumping through various financial hoops to comply with main contractors' prequalification requirements. Now they are losing out to bids that are unsustainable.

One civils firm said his contract win rates have slid from 25% to just 5% of tendered work. In his words "something is going wrong".

The perennial problem for construction is it is often difficult to prove corners are being cut until it is too late and somebody is seriously injured or killed.

That is why the latest safety initiative to stamp out poor site supervision, agreed by all 29 major contractors in the UK Contractors Group, must be welcomed by the whole industry. 

In the current economic climate this is a bold attempt to answer real concerns about the quality of site supervision in the industry, particularly surrounding the enforcement of good health and safety practice.

From the start January 2009 any supervisors who are not properly qualified will be banned from overseeing workers. From that day on all supervisors will need to submit an accepted training certificate or card proving they have the appropriate safety and supervisory skills.

The rule applies to all site supervisory staff, but is targeted at those working for subcontractors. Of course many foremen working for subbies will sigh in despair at the thought of having to deal with yet more red tape.

But this time round it looks like a small price to pay to avoid a dangerous slide into second-rate supervision that undermines hard-won safety standards.

Supervisors carry a lot of responsibility as the frontline enforcers of site safety and as such should be properly qualified.