247 be closely scrutinized. The need for those at the sharp end of the industry to be assisted by suppliers and designers is clear and is instanced by certain sections of reports such as that of the Bragg Committee. Additional effort and time is needed by the builders to question their sources to ensure that they have the knowledge, resources and commitment necessary to comply with their new duties. Briefly too, a mention of the new provisions of the HSW Act concerning employees. The duty to cooperate now placed upon an employee is perhaps one of the best examples of the positive outlook of the Act. In the past the restricted and largely negative duties of employees were usually only examined when something had gone wrong and even then against the background of management worries about effects on industrial relations and about counter-recriminations which were often possible. By shifting the focus to the need for co-operation the HSW Act provides the opportunity for something much more positive. This opportunity can be formally developed in joint committees for health and safety at work which will assume legal status in October 1978. I do not share in any way the cynical reactions which there have been to safety committees. A great deal of patient effort will be needed by all concerned to obtain real bemefits, but I am confident that some of the good joint committees which already exist are very worth while. Indeed health and safety at work ought to be one area above all others where there are common objectives and where an example could be set for other parts of the overall industrial relations
question. THE HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMISSION AND
to disclose factual information to employees in situations where their health or safety is in question. This satisfaction of &dquo;the right to know&dquo; is sometimes beset with difficulties in deciding just what information is factual. To illustrate the point, if an Inspector decides to issue a prohibition notice on the basis of his opinion and he may do this whether or not there is a definite then the fact that he legal requirement involved issued a notice must be factual information and all parties have a right to know about it. In 1975 the Factory Inspectorate issued 187 improvement and 484 prohibition notices in respect of construction work. In other sections of industry there were many more improvement notices in relation to prohibition notices. The difference arises probably because in construction work there are fewer situations in which the improvement notice, with its minimum period of 21 days to put things right, is appropriate. There were 629 prosecutions brought against builders in 1976, 561 under Regulations and the Factories Act and 68 under the Health and Safety at Work Act. It will be interesting to see at what rate the ratio of cases under the more searching provisions of the HSW Act increases. The re-organization of HM Factory Inspectorate into Industry Groups was also a consequence of the Robens Report, but in construction there has been an industry-based organization for many years. A new development at the beginning of 1977 was the setting up of a National Industry Group in HMFI for construction. The National Industry Group will play a large part in the work planning and co-ordination of the operational resources of the Inspectorate.
duty,
-
-
EXECUTIVE on the roles of as was stressed earlier but employees, employers the whole relationship is a three-sided one and includes the Health and Safety Commission and Executive. The Health and Safety Commission is now looking to the setting up of the Industrial Advisory Committee for the construction industry to advise it on the problems and priorities of the industry. The committee members will be drawn from as wide a range of interests as will enable it to make an effective and authoritative contribution. Within the Health and Safety Executive the HSW Act has, of course, made a considerable impact. Inspectors are now exercising their power, or rather
THE PREVIOUS section concentrated
and
CONCLUSION THE PLAIN facts about the present state of affairs in health and safety in construction work are that another it 2,000 workers will be killed in the next decade bears repetition and if the problem is considered in terms of hard cash then construction accidents cost the countrycountry at least £5,000,000 every year. This may continue, for there are no immediate remedies. The HSW Act does not provide ready-made answers, it stresses that there must be involvement, training, commitment and organization. Of necessity then the impact of the Act is not going to be dramatic, but the impact will be very significant if its challenges are accepted. -
-
THE PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATION J. M. TOTTERDELL,
Group Superintending Safety Officer, Laing and Son Ltd.
John
the full time professional safety officer problems of health and safety legislation affecting the construction industry can be divided into five main areas.
FOR ~ -M-
the
1 ) Comprehension 2) Administration 3) Communication 4 Training Updating and revision
5~
COMPREHENSION BEFORE EVEN attempting to advise his employer and the employees of his firm on health and safety legislation the construction safety officer must know how to interpret it in the practical context. The safety officer who simply quotes the regulation at the line manager and says &dquo;Do it that way because the law says so&dquo; will have very little credibility with line management. He is simply being a policeman. Sometimes it is necessary to
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on June 4, 2015
248 like a policeman, but the safety officer should be able to offer practical solutions to the legislative problem. His job is not only to ensure compliance with the minimum legal standards, but the prevention of accidents and damage to health in the widest sense, whether or not legislation applies. act
ADMINISTRATION HAVING COMPREHENDED the often tortuous legal jargon in which the regulations are phrased the construction safety officer must then set up the administration necessary within his organization for ensuring compliance. He must devise policies, and establish procedures for carrying them out. He must carry out
inspections of sites and workplaces, investigate accidents and dangerous occurrences, and ensure remedial
action is taken, where necessary. All this will require the full co-operation and agreement of his line management. A safety officer who does not receive the full backing from his employer is operating in a vacuum, and becomes hardly more than the dispenser of safety boots and helmets. This can often be a problem area. There is the inevitable role conflict between being a company employee and, some might say, a member of the management organization, and being a safety officer willing and able to give ’independent’ advice to his employer. The safety officer can be regarded as an unwelcome nuisance by the cost and productivity conscious line manager. The administrative machinery of the company should ensure that the safety officer has an alternative point of reference, when his advice is being disregarded by a line manager.
COMMUNICATION A GOOD communication system is the very life blood of the construction safety officer. Although in theory the line manager requires to have a detailed knowledge of the legislation which applies to the work for which he is responsible, in practice he will rightly regard his safety officer as the specialist to whom he can turn for advice and interpretation. However, the safety officer will invariably have a number of workplaces to cover and he cannot be everywhere at once. Whenever possible he will issue, through his line management, information and instructions concerning compliance with
legislation. Inevitably, owing to the complexities of the construction industry (ever changing workplace, work situation, and labour force) there will be many occasions
when the actual situation on site does not fit into the overall procedural straitjacket which has been established. Flexibility of approach is essential. In the last analysis however, the safety officer must regard compliance with legislation as his main objective, and flexibility of approach must be consistent with achievement of that objective. The safety officer’s communications must not be confined to his managers. He has an essential communicating role with the site operatives, who should regard the safety officer as someone representing their employer to whom they can turn for unbiased advice on
matters of health and
safety. With the advent of Trade Union appointed safety representatives and committees this role will increase in importance. There has been (in the past) some tendency for health and safety matters to be dragged into industrial relations problems. The safety officer in his relations with safety representatives must tread very carefully, giving sound positive decisions while not entering into the bargaining arena. This is a very sensitive area safety officers, and for that matter factory inspectors will have to be ever mindful of the industrial relation impact of their statements. With regard to the Inspectorate, the safety officer must also establish and maintain a good working relationship and good communications with his local factory inspector. This will be to their mutual benefit, and substantially assist in the raising of standards of site safety and health. -
TRAINING SAFETY TRAINING is a key area in the work of the construction safety officer. Part of this training will simply be the passing on of information concerning legislation to employees. He may do this using visual aids, e.g. films, overhead projector viewfoils, slides, with or without taped commentaries, video presentations, or plain old-fashioned talks. In other words, the safety officer must be a skilled practitioner in the field of training. The topics covered can range from general ones such as site tidiness to specific operations such as the use of circular saws.
UPDATING AND REVISION THE HEALTH and Safety at Work etc Act required a massive updating exercise to be carried out. The recently published Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations 1977 will require another similar exercise. New or revised legislation falls on the desk seemingly every day, let alone drafts of proposed changes or new items of legislation which require commenting upon. This ever-changing scene requires the safety officer to be constantly updating himself and his company. Sometimes the sheer volume of the changes causes problems of speedy and comprehensive digestion. There are still many small companies in the construction industry without the services of a safety officer, who have hardly heard of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act let alone published their policy statement. -
CONCLUSION THE EVER increasing volume of health and safety legislation present the construction safety officer with a
and must meet. The industry has bad record compared with others and this has resulted in the legislators turning their attention on the industry more and more frequently. It remains to be seen whether this legislation will achieve the objective of reducing the accident toll in the industry, or whether it will simply lead to a thrombosis of the whole system. Safety Officers and Factory Inspectors must play their part in ensuring its
challenge he unfortunately
can a
success.
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on June 4, 2015
relatively
question. THE HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMISSION AND
to disclose factual information to employees in situations where their health or safety is in question. This satisfaction of &dquo;the right to know&dquo; is sometimes beset with difficulties in deciding just what information is factual. To illustrate the point, if an Inspector decides to issue a prohibition notice on the basis of his opinion and he may do this whether or not there is a definite then the fact that he legal requirement involved issued a notice must be factual information and all parties have a right to know about it. In 1975 the Factory Inspectorate issued 187 improvement and 484 prohibition notices in respect of construction work. In other sections of industry there were many more improvement notices in relation to prohibition notices. The difference arises probably because in construction work there are fewer situations in which the improvement notice, with its minimum period of 21 days to put things right, is appropriate. There were 629 prosecutions brought against builders in 1976, 561 under Regulations and the Factories Act and 68 under the Health and Safety at Work Act. It will be interesting to see at what rate the ratio of cases under the more searching provisions of the HSW Act increases. The re-organization of HM Factory Inspectorate into Industry Groups was also a consequence of the Robens Report, but in construction there has been an industry-based organization for many years. A new development at the beginning of 1977 was the setting up of a National Industry Group in HMFI for construction. The National Industry Group will play a large part in the work planning and co-ordination of the operational resources of the Inspectorate.
duty,
-
-
EXECUTIVE on the roles of as was stressed earlier but employees, employers the whole relationship is a three-sided one and includes the Health and Safety Commission and Executive. The Health and Safety Commission is now looking to the setting up of the Industrial Advisory Committee for the construction industry to advise it on the problems and priorities of the industry. The committee members will be drawn from as wide a range of interests as will enable it to make an effective and authoritative contribution. Within the Health and Safety Executive the HSW Act has, of course, made a considerable impact. Inspectors are now exercising their power, or rather
THE PREVIOUS section concentrated
and
CONCLUSION THE PLAIN facts about the present state of affairs in health and safety in construction work are that another it 2,000 workers will be killed in the next decade bears repetition and if the problem is considered in terms of hard cash then construction accidents cost the countrycountry at least £5,000,000 every year. This may continue, for there are no immediate remedies. The HSW Act does not provide ready-made answers, it stresses that there must be involvement, training, commitment and organization. Of necessity then the impact of the Act is not going to be dramatic, but the impact will be very significant if its challenges are accepted. -
-
THE PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATION J. M. TOTTERDELL,
Group Superintending Safety Officer, Laing and Son Ltd.
John
the full time professional safety officer problems of health and safety legislation affecting the construction industry can be divided into five main areas.
FOR ~ -M-
the
1 ) Comprehension 2) Administration 3) Communication 4 Training Updating and revision
5~
COMPREHENSION BEFORE EVEN attempting to advise his employer and the employees of his firm on health and safety legislation the construction safety officer must know how to interpret it in the practical context. The safety officer who simply quotes the regulation at the line manager and says &dquo;Do it that way because the law says so&dquo; will have very little credibility with line management. He is simply being a policeman. Sometimes it is necessary to
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on June 4, 2015
248 like a policeman, but the safety officer should be able to offer practical solutions to the legislative problem. His job is not only to ensure compliance with the minimum legal standards, but the prevention of accidents and damage to health in the widest sense, whether or not legislation applies. act
ADMINISTRATION HAVING COMPREHENDED the often tortuous legal jargon in which the regulations are phrased the construction safety officer must then set up the administration necessary within his organization for ensuring compliance. He must devise policies, and establish procedures for carrying them out. He must carry out
inspections of sites and workplaces, investigate accidents and dangerous occurrences, and ensure remedial
action is taken, where necessary. All this will require the full co-operation and agreement of his line management. A safety officer who does not receive the full backing from his employer is operating in a vacuum, and becomes hardly more than the dispenser of safety boots and helmets. This can often be a problem area. There is the inevitable role conflict between being a company employee and, some might say, a member of the management organization, and being a safety officer willing and able to give ’independent’ advice to his employer. The safety officer can be regarded as an unwelcome nuisance by the cost and productivity conscious line manager. The administrative machinery of the company should ensure that the safety officer has an alternative point of reference, when his advice is being disregarded by a line manager.
COMMUNICATION A GOOD communication system is the very life blood of the construction safety officer. Although in theory the line manager requires to have a detailed knowledge of the legislation which applies to the work for which he is responsible, in practice he will rightly regard his safety officer as the specialist to whom he can turn for advice and interpretation. However, the safety officer will invariably have a number of workplaces to cover and he cannot be everywhere at once. Whenever possible he will issue, through his line management, information and instructions concerning compliance with
legislation. Inevitably, owing to the complexities of the construction industry (ever changing workplace, work situation, and labour force) there will be many occasions
when the actual situation on site does not fit into the overall procedural straitjacket which has been established. Flexibility of approach is essential. In the last analysis however, the safety officer must regard compliance with legislation as his main objective, and flexibility of approach must be consistent with achievement of that objective. The safety officer’s communications must not be confined to his managers. He has an essential communicating role with the site operatives, who should regard the safety officer as someone representing their employer to whom they can turn for unbiased advice on
matters of health and
safety. With the advent of Trade Union appointed safety representatives and committees this role will increase in importance. There has been (in the past) some tendency for health and safety matters to be dragged into industrial relations problems. The safety officer in his relations with safety representatives must tread very carefully, giving sound positive decisions while not entering into the bargaining arena. This is a very sensitive area safety officers, and for that matter factory inspectors will have to be ever mindful of the industrial relation impact of their statements. With regard to the Inspectorate, the safety officer must also establish and maintain a good working relationship and good communications with his local factory inspector. This will be to their mutual benefit, and substantially assist in the raising of standards of site safety and health. -
TRAINING SAFETY TRAINING is a key area in the work of the construction safety officer. Part of this training will simply be the passing on of information concerning legislation to employees. He may do this using visual aids, e.g. films, overhead projector viewfoils, slides, with or without taped commentaries, video presentations, or plain old-fashioned talks. In other words, the safety officer must be a skilled practitioner in the field of training. The topics covered can range from general ones such as site tidiness to specific operations such as the use of circular saws.
UPDATING AND REVISION THE HEALTH and Safety at Work etc Act required a massive updating exercise to be carried out. The recently published Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations 1977 will require another similar exercise. New or revised legislation falls on the desk seemingly every day, let alone drafts of proposed changes or new items of legislation which require commenting upon. This ever-changing scene requires the safety officer to be constantly updating himself and his company. Sometimes the sheer volume of the changes causes problems of speedy and comprehensive digestion. There are still many small companies in the construction industry without the services of a safety officer, who have hardly heard of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act let alone published their policy statement. -
CONCLUSION THE EVER increasing volume of health and safety legislation present the construction safety officer with a
and must meet. The industry has bad record compared with others and this has resulted in the legislators turning their attention on the industry more and more frequently. It remains to be seen whether this legislation will achieve the objective of reducing the accident toll in the industry, or whether it will simply lead to a thrombosis of the whole system. Safety Officers and Factory Inspectors must play their part in ensuring its
challenge he unfortunately
can a
success.
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on June 4, 2015
relatively
