April 2009

The appalling toll of death and serious injury in the construction industry has been brought home to me by two meetings I have had recently.

I have had a meeting with Rita Donaghy, probably not a name you are familiar with, but she is a former President of the TUC who has been appointed by Rt Hon James Purnell MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to undertake an inquiry into the underlying causes of construction fatalities. Ms Donaghy is due to report back to Mr Purnell by the end of April 2009 and she has invited the FMB to present its thoughts to her. I have also had a meeting with Lord (Bill) McKenzie, the Minister responsible for Health and Safety at the Department of Work and Pensions, for a more general discussion about the implementation of safe working practices.

FMB COMMITTED TO PROMOTING SITE SAFETY

Although some improvement has been made since the 1980s and early 1990s when construction deaths were averaging 130 every year, 72 people in the industry lost their lives last year whilst at work. Falls remain the predominant cause, with accidents involving moving vehicles, plant or materials close behind. While FMB members are not so likely to be the victims of accidents involving tower cranes or on motorway maintenance sites, the evidence points to a significant proportion of accidents occurring on small sites and with smaller employers. My concern remains that the quality of data collected does not allow any differentiation between smaller employers who take their responsibilities seriously and those operating in the grey economy that treat Health and Safety in just as cavalier a fashion as paying their taxes.

My clear message to both Rita Donaghy and Bill McKenzie was that the FMB, and its members, consider Health and Safety to be the highest priority. The FMB is actively engaged with many statutory and cross industry bodies working in this area, and we offer members a range of support services for advice on health and safety. Our Information Services Department (tel: 0870 162 0947) can answer most enquiries and a specialist helpline is available for more detailed questions.

Factsheets on many aspects of Health and Safety are available on the FMB website, or can be requested in hard copy from the information department. Regular articles appear in Master Builder magazine and specialist workshops are run around the country. Above all, the FMB works closely with the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that each is aware of the needs and concerns of the other.

WORKER SAFETY ADVISOR SCHEME

But more needs to be done. Above all the statutory regime needs to be simplified. The FMB has identified 26 separate Acts of Parliament and Regulations that need to be complied with and where breaches could result in prosecution. We have long argued that whilst managing this volume of legislation may just be possible for a larger business with specialist staff available to scrutinise, explain and train, smaller companies need fewer regulations, with clearer explanations in the source documents and effective enforcement.

The FMB is also arguing for the Government to put funding into a nationwide Worker Safety Advisor scheme. The pilot run by the FMB, the Transport and General Workers Union (now Unite), and UCATT in 2005-07 was highly successful in taking specialist support to building sites to give practical advice. Rolling that scheme out now would be highly cost effective.

Another concern of the FMB is the availability of advice from the HSE. A number of publications still remain available only at a cost, and the FMB believes that high quality advice from the regulator must be freely available to all those from whom compliance is required. The FMB has offered the HSE a regular page in this magazine to put across its key messages. I hope that this offer will be taken up.

EVEN PLAYING FIELD

Finally, there is a need to tackle the informal economy. The difficulty of targeting those businesses that operate informally (who I am convinced are where a disproportionate amount of accidents occur), means that the limited resources available for enforcement remain focussed on those who work legitimately. At the same time with clients, particularly those in the domestic sector still driven almost entirely by price, responsible builders will be at a real disadvantage against those prepared to cut corners and put lives at risk. Perhaps the time has come to put domestic clients under the same liability as commercial clients for ensuring same working practices on their property.

Richard Diment

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October 2009

“Most of my day-to-day work involves refurbishing and repairing old properties. The stripping out of old kitchens and bathrooms etc – not to mention the demolition of walls, results in clouds of dust. We keep windows and doors open where we can – but we still breathe in a lot of muck – are we damaging our health and if so, what measures can we take to reduce the risk?”

One of the most common illnesses resulting from prolonged exposure to building dust is silicosis, caused by crystalline silica. This is present in sand, sandstone and granite, clay, shale, slate, concrete and mortar and the use of power tools to cut or dress stone opens up workers to high exposure. People with silicosis suffer from scarring of lung tissue which leads to breathing difficulties.

The most common is progressive silicosis, caused by exposure over a longer period. Victims suffer severe shortness of breath and the effect continues to develop after exposure has stopped. It is also irreversible.

You should certainly reduce your exposure to silica. In most cases it is possible to control this using dust suppression techniques or local exhaust ventilation. Exhaust ventilated tools are widely available, and capturing or controlling the dust at source is nearly always better than attempting to control exposure by ventilating the whole area.

Respiratory protective equipment (RPE) may need to be provided as well. Guidance on the selection and use of RPE is contained in the HSE booklet: Respiratory protective equipment: A practical guide.

Where workers are regularly exposed to respirable crystalline silica then health surveillance which includes a respiratory questionnaire and lung function testing should be provided, plus, if on an individual basis the doctor thinks it’s necessary, a chest X-ray.

For more detailed information refer to the HSE Guidance Note: Respirable crystalline silica.

May 2009

A new film demonstrates the behavioural changes businesses need to make to reduce deaths and accidents in the construction industry.

ConstructionSkills and UCATT have joined forces to encourage construction firms to improve on-site communication in a bid to reduce numbers of accidents in the industry.

Through the Worker Engagement Toolkit, a new film developed by ConstructionSkills and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), construction firms can learn that communication between employers and workers can dramatically increase health and safety awareness, and therefore lead to a reduction in the number of accidents. In addition, effective worker engagement can help to increase turnover, and help firms to safeguard their business during tough times. The interview-led, 30-minute film examines all levels of a variety of businesses, speaking to managing directors, foremen and workers, and offers working examples of how accidents have reduced over time when worker engagement has been effectively carried out. The Health and Safety Executive was also involved in developing the DVD, which has been identified by the Strategic Forum for Construction Worker Involvement Group as the best toolkit on the market.

Good communication prevents accidents

Recent research by Glasgow Caledonian University, commissioned by the HSE, found that the lack of communication between management and the workforce was an on-going problem that led to accidents taking place when simple communication could have prevented them. As a result ConstructionSkills and UCATT have been working together to address the root causes of the patterns in behaviour that can lead to accidents occurring.

Kevin Fear, Head of Health, Safety and Environment at ConstructionSkills said:

“This Toolkit aims to encourage firms to take on-site health and safety a step further and implement worker engagement at a higher level, in order to help eliminate the number of accidents across the industry. We have already seen evidence that worker engagement is vital in terms of driving down accident and fatality rates, and as the industry’s Sector Skills Council, we want to promote this across the board using this film as a guide. With entire workforces becoming more open and honest, both productivity and safety can be improved.”

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of the Construction Union, UCATT, said: “All the evidence shows that construction sites which are well organised, where workers are directly employed and where there are a high number of independent health and safety representatives, are far safer than casualised sites where bosses pay lip service to safety.

“This new DVD is a useful tool in reinforcing the message to employers that effective worker involvement is a major factor in reducing deaths and injuries at work.”

About ConstructionSkills

ConstructionSkills is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the construction industry. As a partnership between CITB-ConstructionSkills, CIC and CITB Northern Ireland, it is UK-wide and represents the whole industry from professional consultancies to major contractors and SMEs.

About UCATT

UCATT represents 125,000 members employed in the construction industry throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. UCATT’s General Secretary Alan Ritchie is the Chair of the Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC) Encouraging Worker Involvement Working Group.

The first 20 copies of the DVD are free on a first come first served basis after which it will cost £20 and is available to buy from ConstructionSkills at: http://www.cskills.org/supportbusiness/publications/index.aspx?productid=3537