Neal's Notes For September 2007

Haulage company fined £4,000 following serious injury

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has brought the safe operation of heavy goods vehicles into sharp focus following a successful prosecution brought against Tow Law-based W. E. & I. Wright Limited.

The prosecution followed an investigation into an accident to an employee, who was seriously injured after being trapped and crushed between two heavy goods vehicles as one reversed past the other. The investigation by the HSE showed a number of deficiencies in the company's arrangements to ensure safety during reversing operations. These deficiencies were identified as putting employees at serious risk of injury from being struck by a reversing vehicle.

As a result of the prosecution, W. E. & I. Wright Ltd was fined £4,000 at Durham Magistrates Court on 29 August 2007 after admitting it had breached section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was also ordered to pay £2,500 in costs.

HM Inspector of Health and Safety Richard Bishop told the court that his investigation found that the company had been alerted to the risks less than a year before the accident, when it commissioned the Road Haulage Association (RHA) to carry out risk assessments at its premises. However, the precautions identified by the risk assessments were not implemented, meaning that the company had almost no physical or organisational measures in place to control workplace transport risks.

Speaking after the case, Mr Bishop said:

"Vehicles are a part of everyday life, and as a result their dangers are often overlooked - complacency can be a real problem. But workplace transport continues to be the second biggest cause of fatal accidents at work. In 2004/05 there were 70 deaths and over 2,000 major injuries involving vehicles at work. Reversing alone caused about a quarter of the fatal accidents.

"An employer's first consideration should always be to try and eliminate reversing at their premises. But where reversing cannot be avoided, there is clear guidance that spells out how to plan for safety, which should involve taking sensible, cost-effective measures to ensure a safe site, safe vehicles and safe drivers."

Safety representatives effective in promoting health and safety messages

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in partnership with Unite has published a research report that evaluates the effectiveness of involving safety representatives in delivering health and safety initiatives in the workplace.

Geoffery Podger, Chief Executive of HSE welcomed the findings,

"This is an effective way to raise health and safety management in the workplace. Training and exposing safety representatives to new ideas on how to manage various health and safety issues is a valuable way of enabling the workforce to take action and educate those around them."

Rob Miguel, Unite Health and Safety Officer commented,

"Unite believe Safety Reps are an essential component to ensuring safe and healthy working conditions, we want them to receive the best training and be aware of, and involved in current initiatives. Our vision to encourage reps to be proactive, has proved through this work, to be a very effective way to raise health and safety awareness, leading to a more meaningful partnership between all the workforce."

According to the report focusing on HSE's recent Better Backs campaign, safety representatives' involvement has resulted in real improvements in the workplace. Unite trained and supported safety representatives by providing them with appropriate tools and literature that safety representatives could take back and promote in their work places. Results in the report suggest:

Since receiving the training, 59% of safety representatives increased the frequency with which they raised back safety issues with their colleagues, and 29% increased the number of times they raised back safety issues with senior management.
Three months after the training course, of the 24% of representatives who put forward buying new handling aids to their safety committee or senior management, all of them had seen new handling aids bought, and of the 29% who put forward new or updated training programmes on manual handling techniques, 93% had seen this implemented.

This research provides strong evidence that safety representatives are valuable partners in addressing important health and safety issues affecting those whom they represent and given the right training and support, all employee representatives could be equally effective in their workplaces.

1. The research report is the first independent evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of safety representatives in securing better health and safety outcomes. It is available at hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr581.htm

2. The research was conducted to analyse whether promoting HSE campaigns at safety representatives training courses is an effective way of encouraging them to take action in the workplace

3. HSE worked with Unite on the Backs! campaign (on musculoskeletal disorders) to provide support and training to safety representatives. All relevant literature was provided and all participating representatives were then encouraged to take action in their workplaces and promote safety risk assessments

4. This year's European Week for Health and Safety at Work campaign 'Lighten the Load' is dedicated to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and the TUC will be running a short training course for health and safety representatives on the subject

Local authority fined £18,000 over asbestos

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning dutyholders to ensure they take proper precautions when working in buildings where asbestos may be present. The warning follows an investigation at Woodhouse Close Leisure Complex in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

Wear Valley District Council was fined £18,000 at Darlington Magistrates Court this afternoon after admitting six offences under the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002. It was also ordered to pay £7,722 costs.

The investigation followed a complaint in January 2006 by a maintenance worker, who discovered that the plant room of the council-run leisure centre where he had worked for many years contained asbestos.

HM Inspector of Health and Safety, Richard Bishop, said:

"A survey had been carried out in 2001 which identified asbestos containing materials. This information was not acted upon and no-one who worked in the plant room was made aware. As a result, work that was liable to disturb the asbestos was done without the necessary precautions required by law to protect their health from exposure"

"This case should serve as a warning, not only to Local Authorities, but to everyone responsible for carrying out or contracting maintenance work on buildings where asbestos may be present"

"With up to 4,000 deaths per year - that's around 15 times the current rate of fatal accidents at work - asbestos-related diseases are the largest occupational killers in the UK. There is still a legacy of asbestos in buildings that needs addressing. It is estimated that some half a million non-domestic premises contain asbestos of some type. And this means there are still workers putting themselves at risk every day. Recent studies estimate that a quarter of those dying from an asbestos-related disease worked as electricians, plumbers, maintenance workers or builders"

"Where asbestos has been found to be present in buildings, the risk it presents must be evaluated and written plans devised and implemented that specify the steps necessary to address the risk. All work liable to expose people to asbestos must be carefully planned and assessed, with appropriate precautions taken to prevent or reduce exposure and the spread of asbestos"

New chemical classification and labelling regulation

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has launched a 12 week consultation on the proposed European Regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals, based on the United Nation's Globally Harmonised System (GHS).

The Regulation, which is currently being negotiated by European Union Member States, will eventually replace the existing classification and labelling system that many chemical suppliers will know through the Chemicals (Hazard Information and Packaging for Supply) Regulations - known as CHIP.

The consultation invites stakeholders to review the proposed Regulation and respond to the HSC with any comments, which will be taken into consideration once detailed negotiations with European Member States begin in mid-September.

The European Commission formally launched the proposed Regulation on 27 June 2007. The Regulation is a major step forward in achieving a global system for identifying the hazards in chemicals and advising users of those hazards through labels.

Although many of the duties to classify, label and package hazardous chemicals correctly will remain the same, the Regulation will also introduce:

Some new scientific criteria to classify hazards;
Some new hazard pictograms or symbols;
New hazard and precautionary statements for the labels which will alert users to the dangers present.

New gas installer registration scheme

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced a competition to run a new gas installer registration scheme aimed at beefing-up domestic gas safety standards. The new scheme is set to bring benefits to both gas consumers and gas installers across Great Britain.

Health and Safety Minister, Lord McKenzie of Luton welcomed the proposal,

"This is a major opportunity to re-energize domestic gas safety which is aimed at decreasing gas related incidents in the coming years. I particularly welcome the new responsibility to co-ordinate industry actions on raising public awareness on gas safety. I call upon industry and all those interested in gas safety to work in partnership with HSE to make these changes work and deliver real benefits to consumers and gas installers."

This proposal takes forward recommendations arising from HSE's review of the domestic gas safety regime and stakeholder views. Oversight of the new regime will remain with HSE.

The main elements of the new scheme will be:

A single provider appointed to run the new scheme for 5 years.
The new registration scheme provider will co-ordinate stronger industry action to raise public awareness of gas safety.
The new provider will be given other functions such as tackling the problem of illegal, unregistered installers; and
It will be asked to review the competence requirements for registration of gas installers with a view to simplifying the current requirements and reducing burdens on installers.

The competition involves a two-stage process in which interested parties are invited to submit a written pre-qualification statement to establish their competence to submit a full bid. An independent chairman has been appointed to lead the panel that will evaluate both stages of bids.

Gas installers will be encouraged to register through simplified registration and competence arrangements, keeping costs at affordable levels.

HSE statistics show an improvement on the number of recorded gas fatalities, 16 fatal gas related CO poisonings in 2005/06, compared to twice that number ten years ago. However recent research shows widespread public ignorance of the dangers of gas which reinforces the importance of gas safety as an essential consumer protection issue.

Don't overcomplicate health and safety

As a part of the Government's Better Regulation Agenda the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have initiated a dedicated project to help small and medium size businesses (SMEs) to fulfil their health and safety requirements as outlined by law. With this initiative HSE aims to reduce the cost of risk assessment to most business by a third.

Speaking at an event that announced a number of government better regulation initiatives HSC Chair Sir Bill Callaghan said,

"What has come to be known as 'elfandsafety' can be a frustrating business. In part it's frustrating because so many of the stories you hear are based on misinterpretations of the law, or the misguided actions of a few individuals. In reality much health and safety law is flexible, but it can be intimidating if you are not sure what is required."

Building on HSE's sensible risk campaign Sir Bill announced the launch of three more of HSE's example risk assessments to help businesses. He continued,

"We are saying you don't need to overcomplicate things, keep your risk assessment fit for purpose, make it a living document and act on it. Risk assessment should be about what practical steps you need to take to protect people, not paperwork for its own sake. By itself, filling in a form never saved a life. It should be a means to an end - sensible risk management."

HSE has been working closely with stakeholders to develop industry-specific concise and practical example risk assessments that will help businesses with the information they need to make informed decisions, and make significant impact on the amount of time and money they feel they need to spend managing the risks in their workplaces. This project will help SMEs understand what a 'good enough' risk assessment looks like.

At the same event the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) launched it's study of the cumulative impact of health and safety regulation on low risk businesses which HSE will be supporting.

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