Well, they’re sort of right … in a way.

To begin with, it’s perfectly true that health & safety is based on common sense, and for evidence of this all you have to do is look at the requirements of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.

The obligations placed on the employer include a requirement to provide a safe place of work; to provide safe working practices; to provide appropriate training and information; and so on.

All common sense stipulations, are they not? Of course they are, but time and time again these basic conditions are not met.

Construction sites with no edge protection to prevent people falling off the roof; workers being given equipment which is not suitable or is not properly maintained; staff working unsupervised on tasks which they don’t properly understand; and so it goes on.

And it’s not just the employers who are at fault.

I recently saw a worker wearing a duffel coat over his reflective safety jacket, and I’ve come across a construction worker, on the top of a building with no fencing, whose safety harness had an arrest strap longer than the drop. This meant that he’d have to be a metre below ground level before the harness pulled tight and “saved” him!

If it’s all just a matter of common sense then why do people put their lives at risk by doing such things, actions which are patently absurd?

Behavioural psychology is a complex subject, but, sadly, the obvious conclusion which can be drawn is that common sense just isn’t that common – which is why we need health & safety legislation.

Bearing in mind that I started my health & safety studies in late 2004 (with the NEBOSH General Certificate) a quick calculation shows that it’s taken me seven years to get to this professional pinnacle.

Which is roughly the same time as it takes to qualify as a doctor!

Next stop a Fellowship …..? Just a thought!

It was a very interesting programme in its own right (okay, I admit it – I like aircraft!) but what really struck me was the unassuming attitude of one of the managers as he looked back over the closure and its impact on the business.

He readily admitted that closure of the airport was never a matter to be taken lightly; and that doing so had cost the company tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of pounds in lost revenue; and then he made a comment which apparently summed up his point of view.

He stated, without drama, that ultimately it was all about safety. If the runway was unsafe to use, and if they were unable to make it safe, then so be it. They were duty bound to cease operations regardless of the financial impact.

Well said that man!

What intrigues me is why other companies – in other sectors – cannot follow the Gatwick example and put the safety of lives before profit. Time and again there are cases brought before the Courts in which people have been injured, or even killed, because the employer has been cutting corners in safety to save a few quid.

A case that springs to mind is that of the Moseley Rubber Company who were based in Manchester (http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2010/coi-nw-054moseleyrubber.htm).

The manufacturing process they used to make rubber rollers involved a piece of equipment called an autoclave – essentially an oven working at high pressures and temperatures. As one would expect, equipment like this needs to be regularly serviced to ensure it’s working safely – indeed, such maintenance is a legal requirement – but it seems from evidence tended at the subsequent prosecution that the company weren’t overly concerned about such things.

Matters came to a head in February 2008 when the autoclave exploded with such force that the concrete roof of the factory was lifted bodily from its supports and a 5-foot girder was thrown across the factory floor.

Had a member of staff not been away on an early coffee break then the girder, which landed on his machine and destroyed it, would also have hit and killed him.  As it was he was still hit by flying debris and injured.

During the prosecution proceedings evidence was heard that the company, instead of having the autoclave regularly serviced as legally required, had instead simply cancelled the maintenance contract. Consequently the equipment had not been maintained properly for over ten years – so it’s little wonder it eventually expired in such a dramatic and dangerous way.

Greed, coupled with a disinterest in safety, nearly led to a man dying – and to unnecessary tragedy blighting the lives of his wife, four children and ten grandchildren.

If only more employers would embrace the “Gatwick effect”!

What they know, and have proved,  is that effective health & safety management – often maligned as bureaucratic nonsense – is actually a very good way of increasing their profits.

Let me repeat that bombshell: good health & safety management makes you money!

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? It goes against all the pundits and soothsayers who’ll tell anybody within earshot that “elf’n’safety” is a waste of time; that it’s all “common sense”; that it’s just mindless paper pushing by clipboard jockies; that …. well, you’ve no doubt heard them all before.

But – shock/ horror – the prophets are wrong about the profits! (Sorry, couldn’t resist it).

Don’t just take my word for it. You can see their case studies, and those of other companies both large and small, on the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/business/casestudy.htm

Put simply, the companies in these studies have proved that money invested in effective safety management can result in a substantial positive effect on their bottom line.

In the case of Royal Mail, for example, a system costing about £160,000 per year to implement and manage resulted in savings in the region of £370,000 per year, i.e. an increase in actual profits of about £210,000 per year.

However, what does not appear on the bottom line are the indirect benefits of having effective safety management in place. So let’s look at these benefits in a bit more detail.

It follows that if you manage health & safety effectively then the chances of your staff being involved in an accident – especially those staff involved in lone working, such as delivery drivers – are greatly reduced. That, after all, is the whole point of health & safety.

And if the chances of an accident occurring are minimised then the possibility of the company having to face subsequent legal action is also minimised. So far, so good.

But, is legal action for a health & safety breach really that much of a threat to the company? Or is it just like getting a corporate parking ticket – an annoying irritation, so you simply pay up and move on?

Oh, if only it were that simple! But since when has a parking ticket – even one you’ve paid – had the power to follow you like a curse for maybe five years?

You see, that’s what can happen if your company is convicted of a breach of health & safety.

Not only is there the fine to consider (up to £20,000 per breach at the Magistrates’ Court, or an unlimited amount at the Crown Court) but there is also the effect on the company’s ability to gain further work.

Let me explain this often forgotten point.

If your company tenders for work with corporate clients, government departments or local authorities then you will be asked to complete a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) as part of the tender process. And within that PQQ will be a question about your company’s health & safety history.

Oh dear! This is where your health & safety conviction really starts to bite.

There will be a question asking you if your company has been convicted of a breach of health & safety within the past (probably five) years. You’ll have to answer “Yes” to this question because the company’s conviction is a matter of public record and will be shown on the HSE prosecutions database (http://www.hse.gov.uk/Prosecutions/).

And what will your prospective client do with your application once you’ve admitted your conviction for a breach of health & safety? In all probability they’ll file your application in the nearest waste bin.

And that will keep on happening while the conviction remains “live” as far as the PQQ is concerned.

Let’s be clear that your potential client is not being superior, or self-righteous. It’s because they have a clear legal obligation to employ only competent contractors, and it’s difficult to defend as competent a contractor with a proven track record for breaching health & safety. They have no option.

There are other factors to consider, such as minimising the chance of being prosecuted for corporate manslaughter, or facing civil proceedings seeking damages for negligence, but space is limited and these may be topics for further articles.

So, with our limited space in mind, let’s take stock. What have we established (with the help of numerous companies large and small)?

We have seen clear evidence that effective safety management can actually improve the bottom line, and we have also considered (albeit briefly) the potentially catastrophic damage (in both the short term and long term) that a breach of health & safety can cause to a company’s viability.

Now it’s up to you.

You may still wish to believe the soothsayers and the urban myths; or you may choose to go with hard facts and cold logic. It’s your choice, but bear in mind that Chep UK, the Royal Mail, and all the others have already made their decision ……!!

Well, there has been a very interesting development.

The CEO of my client company, acting on my advice, rang the contractor’s head office and spelled out in no uncertain terms that she was very unhappy with their cavalier attitude to safety. She made it perfectly clear that, assuming they wanted any further work from her company, they needed to review their safety practices and start taking health & safety seriously.

Today the contractors came back to make some adjustments to the communications lasers on the roof. Not only was the technician properly equipped with safety kit, he was accompanied by his managing director who apologised unreservedly to my client’s CEO for their previous failings!

Makes it all worthwhile somehow

Their problem arose from a visit they’d just had from a contractor who was fitting a new data transmission system for their computers. The proposed system required a data link between their building and a second building a couple of miles away across the city, and for technical reasons that link was being established via a laser transmitter on their roof.

So far, so good.

Now, let me make it perfectly clear that my client had no problem with the use of a laser link to transmit data, i.e. they weren’t worried about dazzling the pigeons, or anything like that. Their problem arose from the attitude of the specialist contractors who had been commissioned to install the laser on the roof, in particular in their attitude to safety.

My client takes health & safety management seriously (I can say this with authority because I’ve trained a number of their managers!) so when the contractor first arrived on site they were given clear instructions that they were not to access the roof area without a safety briefing – instructions which they simply ignored.

This was a worrying start to the day because the client’s building is old and the roof has very limited room in which to move about safely– one false step and you’ll nose dive three floors onto spiked railings. So you can understand my client’s concern that the contractors had just taken it upon themselves to stroll around the roof without waiting for the safety briefing.

What made the situation worse – and increased my client’s concerns – was the fact that the contractors were totally unconcerned and unrepentant when taken to task for not waiting for the briefing. In fact they went so far as to claim that they only worked in accordance with their own risk assessments (which they had failed to produce) and would only use safety harnesses if the client requested that harnesses be used.

This is an appalling attitude from a supposedly professional company who spend their days working at height installing data transmitters.

The first point to note is that they cannot ignore the client’s risk assessments or safety instructions. The client has a legal responsibility to ensure the contractor’s safety while on their site, and the contractor has a legal responsibility to cooperate with the client.

Second area of concern – and this is the issue which really set my alarm bells ringing – was the cavalier remark about harnesses only being used if the customer asked for them!

Safety harnesses are vital equipment designed and used to protect life. They are not intended as part of a glorified PR exercise, being used as cynical window dressing to pacify an anxious client.

That a supposedly professional installation company could even think of treating safety equipment in this way horrifies me. Their attitude is not just arrogant or foolish, but is bordering on the criminal since it can only be a matter of time before their luck runs out and somebody is killed.

If an opportunity arises I shall certainly speak to their management to point out the foolishness of their ways, but in the meantime my concern has to be for my client. Under UK legislation they have a responsibility to ensure that contractors working on their site behave in a safe manner, and this particular contractor is proving to be a liability.

Hence my advice to my client’s CEO, as reflected in the title of this article: “Fire the contractor …!”

The reason can be found in my latest article on Constructaquote:

http://www.constructaquote.com/2492/section.aspx/1475/First-aid-It%E2%80%99s-More-Than-Just-A-Green-Box

During this research I read through numerous prosecution reports including two different cases involving manned guarding companies. These in particular caught my eye because both incidents had so many similarities.

Both investigations resulted from the death of the security officer, and in each case the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning due to the use of a petrol generator in an unventilated area. Furthermore, in both cases the root cause of the accident was a failure to carry out an adequate risk assessment prior to installing the generator, which meant that the resulting deaths were totally preventable.

Thankfully I could only find a couple of cases involving the misuse of petrol generators, but these cases still got me thinking about this general problem: how many companies with lone workers ever consider the possibility that their staff – to whom they owe both a legal and moral duty of care – are being put in harm’s way by the company’s activities?

Unfortunately, I think that the answer to that question is “Not many”.

Many businesses, in areas such as manned guarding and the retail sector, are under severe pressure to keep costs down as their profit margins get thinner and thinner. Hence the last thing the employer wants to do in such circumstances is to increase their costs by (say) sending a manager to a site to do a formal risk assessment, or employing two members of staff in a shop when (in theory) there is only enough work for one.

What is often forgotten when making these decisions is that measures used to save money in the short term could actually cost you not just money but your business if things go wrong.

Let’s look again at the two fatal cases I mentioned above. Had the companies concerned done a proper risk assessment of the dangers of using petrol generators in a confined space, and had they maybe issued the staff with appropriate safety instructions, then those accidents would not have happened. Their security officers would still be alive, and the companies would still have a clean health & safety record.

And it’s not just manned guarding companies who cut corners with lone workers.

Within the past few weeks a leading UK retail network has been prosecuted by a local Council and fined for failing to protect its employees from workplace violence. The incident which triggered the prosecution was a robbery in which the female manager, who was working alone, was attacked, forced to open the safe, and then beaten unconscious.

And this had not been the first robbery at the store. It had been robbed only a month previously, but the company had ignored police advice on improving their security, the CCTV and alarm systems were still faulty, and the staff had not been given training in how to handle violent situations.

Only now – after a manager has been beaten unconscious and fines imposed – has the company improved its safety procedures, including ensuring two members of staff are always on duty.

Why do companies still not understand that health & safety management is an integral part of any business? Indeed, it’s probably the most important part since if you get it wrong the damage to your reputation, and the acquisition of a criminal record, can mean the end of the company.

This is especially true of companies who tender for work from major clients. They will have to complete a health & safety questionnaire as part of the tender process, and how do you think the client will react to an admission that the company has been prosecuted for a health & safety breach resulting in an employee’s death? That application is heading straight for the bin – as is the future of the company.

Let’s go back to the title of this article for a moment.

It’s tempting for firms with lone workers to assume that they can somehow muddle through, that they can ignore basic health & safety requirements, and that nothing will happen. Their lone workers are out of sight and effectively out of mind – but if something does go wrong the company could well be out of business.

Brutal – but true.

As the article demonstrates, health & safety law must not be taken lightly. It has teeth, and if it bites it will hurt!

The article can be seen in full at:

http://www.constructaquote.com/2492/section.aspx/1407/Penalties-for-breaching-health-and-safety-law

To help smaller companies keep out of trouble I thought it might be useful to summarise the legal requirements concerning risk assessments, and to look also at the penalties which can be invoked for lack of compliance.

The requirement to conduct a risk assessment is laid down by the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Regulation 3(1) says that:

Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of -

(a)  the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work; and

(b)  the risks to the health and safety of persons not in his employment arising out of or in connection with the conduct by him of his undertaking,

And the self-employed cannot avoid their responsibilities either. Regulation 3(2) lays down a similar duty on them in respect of risks both to themselves and to those affected by their business activities.

It is very important to note that the Regulations refer to “Every employer …” so there is no exemption for small or part-time businesses. However, and I feel this may be the cause of some confusion, there is some leeway for smaller businesses in the way they record their risk assessments.

The risk assessment needs to be recorded only when -

a) the risk has been assessed as significant, and

b) the firm employs five or more persons (whether that be full- or part-time, or a mixture of both).

As a matter of best practice I always recommend that companies always record their risk assessments – regardless of company size – because then they have an obvious defence if the risk assessment is challenged.

Which brings me neatly to the issue of penalties for non-compliance.

Put simply, since the introduction of the Health & Safety Offences Act 2008 the penalties for most health & safety offences have increased dramatically. Failure to provide a “suitable and sufficient” risk assessment can be met by a fine at the Magistrates’ Court of up to £20,000, and if the case goes to the Crown Court a judge can impose an unlimited fine and up to 2 years’ imprisonment.

And it gets worse!

Failure to provide a suitable and sufficient risk assessment means that your method of working can also be challenged as unsafe – because you haven’t worked out the risks involved.

Can you see where this is going?

Yes, you guessed it – failure to provide a safe system of work is a breach of Section 2 of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and can be punished using the same tariff as given above, i.e. a £20,000 fine at the Magistrates’ Court, or an unlimited fine and up to 2 years’ imprisonment at the Crown Court.

Just to complete the picture have a look at my previous blog posting – “You’re guilty – now prove you’re not!” – which I published on 27^th July 2010. This explains how health & safety law can be biased against the accused company, thus making any legal challenges more difficult to fight.

Risk assessments are a vital tool in health & safety management, and are treated as such in law. Ignore them at your peril.