Risk, Health and Safety Information

Health & Safety in the news this week: 

New sentencing guidelines for Health & Safety offences 

The sentencing council last week published definitive guidelines for the sentencing of health and safety offences.

These guidelines will have an impact on the fines construction companies will face if found guilty of such offences.

The new guidelines will apply to all health and safety cases sentenced after 1 February 2016, regardless as to when the offence was committed.

Under the new guidelines a court will need to consider the following criteria when deciding upon the correct level of fine:

• the harm the offence caused, with multiple deaths being the most serious harm;
• the culpability of the offender, ranging from a mere oversight to a deliberate act or omission;
• the size of the offender, measured by reference to financial turnover.

Courts will be encouraged to ensure that fines are sufficiently substantial to have real economic impact.  This is intended to bring home to both shareholders and management the need to provide a safe working environment.

The starting point for the fines is linked to the organisation's annual turnover, not profits

The most serious breach leading to a fatality (not corporate manslaughter) attracts a starting point of £4m, with a range from £2.6m to £10m, for a large company (turnover in excess of £50m). For a micro company (turnover under £2m) it will lead to a starting point of £250,000 with a range from £150,000 to £450,000. For a very large company, or in an exceptional case, a judge can impose punishments outside the recommended range.

The guidelines will also apply to individuals prosecuted for health and safety offences.

You can do the following:

• Review your existing health & safety policies and procedures ensuring the systems are robust.
• Ensure a prominent profile for health & safety risks in the corporate risk registers.
• Boards must satisfy themselves that health & safety is embedded in the organisation and is not just a function of the health & safety team.
• Audits must be fit for purpose and not a tick box exercise.
• Investigations of incidents must be thorough with consideration given to invoking litigation privilege.

CHAS announces the launch of Electronic application system (Eforms)

Eforms is an electronic application system which allows submission of a CHAS Assessment with supporting documentation online.

The main benefits of the Eforms system are:

• New efficient online process
• Upload documentation electronically
• Save and retrieve your application at anytime
• An electronic certificate will be emailed instantaneously upon successful completion of your assessment. (A hard copy will be posted within 10 working days)
• Instant email alerts throughout your application process from start to completion
• No more large/multiple emails
• Save on unnecessary trips to the post office & postage costs
• Eforms uses a secure (3d secure Visa verified) online card payment system

Go to http://www.chas.co.uk/ for more information.

HSE Prosecutions round-up:

Firms sentenced after construction death

Two associate companies have been fined after the death of a worker in London, killed when concrete joists fell on him.

Electrician John Walker, who worked for 777 Environmental Limited, died while working on a demolition site on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle, where the Strata Building now sits.

In August 2007, John Walker was working on an area of the site near to remote controlled demolition machines.  Whilst breaking through a structural beam, the machines dislodged several concrete joists which struck him and he died at the scene.

The HSE prosecuted after it found the principal contractor, 777 Demolition and Haulage Co Ltd, and subcontractor, and also sister firm, 777 Environmental, failed to properly plan, manage and monitor the demolition of the structure.

Southwark Crown Court was told the companies failed to prepare or implement an effective and safe system of work for the demolition, which ultimately allowed for an uncontrolled collapse to take place.

The HSE explained that as the principal contractor, it was the duty of 777 Demolition and Haulage Co. Limited to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of those not only in its employment, but affected by its work on site.

777 Environmental Limited was the subcontractor and employer of Mr Walker, and was brought in to undertake the demolition of the building. Its failure to properly investigate the nature of the structure as demolition proceeded led to the uncontrolled collapse. By not having implemented robust exclusion zones this sadly allowed a wholly foreseeable risk to have fatal consequences. It admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, at an earlier hearing and was fined £90,000.

777 Demolition and Haulage Co. Limited of Beddington Lane, Croydon, Surrey denied the charges but was found guilty, after a trial, of breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and fined £125,000.

Costs of £167, 857 were awarded to HSE.

 Skip company and director fined after worker killed in excavator fall

Waste management firm South Coast Skips Ltd and its owner have been prosecuted after one worker died and another was left seriously injured when they fell from the bucket of an excavator.

Lindsay Campbell, a 66-year-old father of ten from Waterlooville in Hampshire, was killed when the bucket of an excavator he was working in tipped causing him to fall nine metres to the ground. Mr Campbell’s colleague, who was in the bucket alongside him also fell and suffered severe leg injuries in the incident on 25 July 2012 at the company’s site at the Rudford Industrial estate in Arundel.

Chichester Crown Court heard that Lindsay Campbell had carried on working for Kevin Hoare, a director of South Coast Skips despite recently retiring. On the day of the incident he was running an electric cable to power a waste screening machine known as a ‘trommel’.

Mr Campbell decided to run the cable along a previously used route in the rafters of the shed and asked to be lifted in the bucket of an excavator.  The excavator driver lifted both Mr Campbell and an agency worker and whilst positioning the cable the hydraulic pressure dropped causing the bucket to tip forward. Both men fell nine metres to the concrete floor.

The court also heard that the bucket of an excavator is not designed to lift people yet nobody on site attempted to stop this activity taking place.

South Coast Skips Ltd of Rudford Industrial Estate, Ford, Arundel pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974 (HASWA,1974) was fined £65,000 and ordered to pay costs of £25,000.

Mr Kevin Hoare, 65, of Fareham, Hampshire pleaded guilty to section 37 of HASWA, 1974 and was given a 12 month custodial sentence suspended for 18 months.

Scaffold collapse lands three companies in Court

Three companies working on construction of residential apartments have been sentenced after workers narrowly escaped injury when a huge scaffold collapsed in the River Brain.

The work was being undertaken at the Former Riverside Centre, in Braintree, Essex when on 1 July 2014 the scaffold, which was forty metres in length and five lifts high, collapsed into the river.

The HSE investigated the incident and charged three firms with various breaches of law; Principal Contractor Parkland Developments Ltd, scaffolding contractor SC Cousins Scaffolding Ltd and CDM co-ordinator Haze and Safety Ltd.

The court heard the HSE’s investigation found numerous failings on site;

·         The CDM co-ordinator had failed to provide suitable and sufficient advice to the client (Parkland Developments Ltd) or ensure that the arrangements were being implemented on site.

·         The Principal Contractor (Parkland Developments Ltd) failed to implement the construction phase plan or ensure that they planned and managed or monitored the scaffolding works.

·         The scaffolding contractor failed to plan the work or design the scaffold. They also failed to send trained and competent workers to site. In the weeks prior to the collapse, a scaffolding labourer was acting as the supervisor and overseeing trainee scaffolders in erecting, altering and inspecting the scaffold.

·         Not one of the duty holders had identified there was no design for the scaffold.

HSE served a Prohibition Notice following the collapse, stopping all further work until an adequate design had been drawn up.

Following the collapse, SC Cousins continued to send untrained scaffolders to site and Parkland Developments allowed them to adapt the scaffold. Parkland also continued to allow site labourers to adapt scaffolding, even providing the tools to do so.

On Monday 2 November 2015, the court was told Parkland Developments Ltd had received an inspection from HSE at the same site several months prior to the collapse where five enforcement notices were issued for other management failings. A Notification of Contravention was also issued on CDM co-ordinator Haze and Safety Ltd for failing to provide suitable and sufficient advice to the client.

SC Cousins Scaffolding Ltd had also received an inspection from HSE at a different site five weeks before the collapse and had been informed of the design requirements for scaffolding.

Parkland Developments Ltd of Witham Road, Black Notley pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 22(1)(a) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. They were fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,893.

S C Cousins Scaffolding Ltd of Church St, Billericay pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 4(1)(a), 5 and 8(b) of the Work at Height Regulations. They were fined a total of £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,981.

Haze and Safety Ltd of Meadowside, Braintree pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations Regulation 20(1)(a) & (b) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. They were fined a total of £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,981.

Ladder fall leads to court for sub-contractor

A Nottingham sub-contractor has been prosecuted after a worker was injured when he fell from an unsafe ladder.

Lincoln Crown Court heard Charanjit Singh had been employed by Hardev Gutheran Singh to carry out refurbishment work at a site in Ark Road, North Somercotes, Louth.

On 11 May 2013, Charanjit Singh, 57, was painting metal roof struts more than three metres high when the ladder he was working on gave way. He hit the concrete floor below, dislocating his shoulder and shattering his knee.

He spent ten days in hospital and had to have a knee replacement. He has been unable to work since as he still suffers discomfort and has mobility problems.

A HSE investigation found the aluminium ladder had been poorly maintained. A non-slip foot was missing and another was damaged, as was one of the rungs.

On the 6th November 2015, Hardev Gutheran Singh, 32, of Park Street, Lenton, Nottingham, was ordered to complete 180 hours community service after being found guilty of breaching regulation 7(2) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.