CONSTRUCTIONSKILLS HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE

Transcription

1 November 2007 CONSTRUCTIONSKILLS HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE HSEC/07/M20 The 20th Meeting of the Health, Safety and Environment Committee was held at am on Wednesday 14 th November 2007 at ConstructionSkills, Carthusian Court, 12 Carthusian Street, London EC1M 6EZ. PRESENT Bob Blackman : Chairman Ben Legg : Major Contractors Group (MCG) Haydn Steele : Chairman of the Health Safety Test Question Sub-Committee (HSTQSC) Derek Ross : Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) Andrew Pears : National Federation of Builders (NFB) Roger Hall : National Contractors Federation (NCF) Jim Purdie : Scottish Building John Scott : National Specialist Contractors Council (NSCC) OBSERVERS Peter Hornsby : Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Greg Brown : Construction Industry Council (CIC) INVITEES Tim Shambrook : Health and Safety Executive (HSE) IN ATTENDANCE Kevin Fear : Head of Health, Safety and Environment Paul Firman : Representing John Middleton, Principal Lecturer Neil England : Business Performance Products & Services Manager Linsey Joyce : Clerical Assistant INTRODUCTION ACTION BY 1. The Chairman welcomed Members to the meeting in particular new member, Andrew Pears. He also introduced Neil England who would be providing Members with a presentation at Item 4 on the agenda and Tim Shambrook who would be providing a presentation at Item 7 on the agenda. ITEM 1 : APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE 2. Apologies had been received from Peter Rogerson (Board/CSCS), Edward Woods (HBF), David Pierre (HAE), John Thompson (UCATT), Tom Corrigan (CPA), Phil Chatfield (EA), Mike Long (NSCC), Robert Hudson (NAS), Shelley Atkinson Frost (CC), Simon Mantle (NHBC), Colin Dobson (BACH), John Carpenter (HE), Jim Martin (CIOB), Elizabeth Robson (FMB), Philip Russell (FMB) and Noelyne Fuller (Committee Secretary). ITEM 2 : TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE 19TH MEETING (HSEC/07/M19) 3. Andrew Pears pointed out that Julia Evans is from the NFB and not HBF. Shelly Atkinson-Frost had reported that only 5% of the self-employed reported accidents, not 50% as recorded at paragraph 16. Subject to these amendments the minutes were agreed as a correct record of the meeting held on 18 July 2007 and were signed by the Chairman.

2 ITEM 3 : MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES Paragraph 4 Trojan Horse Project 2 HSEC/07/M20 4. Kevin Fear advised that the Trojan Horse project was looking at how appropriate Trojan Horse messaging could be used, however decisions on how this would be achieved were yet to be decided. Kevin Fear offered to discuss this with Members of the committee after the meeting and advised he would notify them of any progress at future meetings but had nothing further to report at the moment. Paragraph 8 Construction Safety Institute 5. The Chairman advised that Sir Michael Latham had declined the invitation to appear at the launch of the Construction Safety Institute. John Scott enquired whether the launch had taken place, Kevin Fear responded that he did not know. Paragraph 18 Fatality Statistics 6. Kevin Fear advised that the presentation on fatality statistics had now been deferred until the next HSEC committee meeting. Peter Hornsby advised that he will be circulating a paper to the committee in the meantime. Peter Hornsby Paragraph 21 Professionally Qualified Persons (PQP) Health and Safety Test 7. Greg Brown informed Members that an initial meeting of the CIC Health and Safety group, which would be considering the design sector s requirements for the PQP card, would take place week commencing 19 November The purpose of this work would be to inform the Health and Safety Test Question Sub-Committee (HSTQSC) to enable changes to be made to the PQP test to encourage designer uptake of health and safety issues. The Chairman said this would be very helpful. Paragraph 23 Endorsement of the Health and Safety Test Question Sub-Committee s Terms of Reference 8. Kevin Fear has not yet put forward the comments raised by the HSEC as the HSTQSC had not met since the last HSEC meeting. ITEM 4 : THE DEPARTMENT FOR WORKS AND PENSIONS ACHIEVING BEHAVIORAL CHANGE (REPORT BY NEIL ENGLAND) 9. Neil England provided members with an oral report on a new Achieving Behavioral Change course which had been launched through ConstructionSkills. The structure of the course had been circulated to HSEC Members prior to the meeting. 10. Neil England agreed to forward a CD containing the course syllabus to Committee Members and requested feedback to assist in taking the project forward. Neil England 11. The Chairman extended his thanks to Neil England for the presentation. Members discussed the content of the course and agreed encouraging behavioral change was a very important but difficult area for industry to address. 12. The HSEC noted the presentation.

3 3 HSEC/07/M20 ITEM 5 : REPORT FROM THE PETER HAIN CONSTRUCTION FORUM (REPORT BY KEVIN FEAR) 13. Kevin Fear briefed Members on the outcome of the meeting which had been held on 17 September The conclusion was that initiatives undertaken by Major contractors to reduce accidents should be shared with those areas of industry which were in difficulty, in particular; House Builders and Repair and Refurbishment. Kevin Fear reported that there had been a real focus from both the Minister and those in attendance, and there had been a number of offers of help from Major Contractors. The actions that came out of the Construction Forum would now be taken forward by the Strategic Forum for Construction. A number of issues were highlighted for action which will be addressed by a number of working groups. The primary issues for action were, worker engagement, sharing best practice and raising levels of competence. 14. Peter Hornsby commented that the highest proportion of accidents tended to be from smaller sites. Most of the increase last year came in the latter part which was comparable to that of the previous year. Greg Brown added that the problem should be seen as an industry problem rather than sectored. 15. The Chairman commented that delivering improvement was essential but could prove difficult as the areas where improvement was most required were the less regulated and more difficult to engage with. 16. The HSEC noted the report. ITEM 6 : CONIAC MEETING BEING HELD ON 22 NOVEMBER 2007 (HSEC/07/20/1) 17. Kevin Fear reminded Members that these meetings had been restructured to enable HSEC s views to be taken into account when he attended the CONIAC meetings. 18. Kevin Fear confirmed that he would update Members on the report for Construction Health and Safety Statistics at the next meeting. Kevin Fear 19. Kevin Fear reported that the purpose of Item 5 on the CONIAC agenda was to try and ensure that the CONIAC s Working Groups were giving clear objectives alongside measurable outcomes and that the Chairmen of these groups would give regular and appropriate feedback to CONIAC. 20. Kevin Fear pointed out that Item 6 on the CONIAC agenda Competence in the construction industry, had been included on the agenda due to the input from the HSEC after John Scott had requested Kevin Fear raise this issue. John Scott added that he would encourage this matter to be taken further forward, as a resolution was still required. John Scott reported that Gordon Crick of the HSE was currently looking at pre-qualification issues. John Murphy would be writing Terms of Reference for a small Pre-qualification Group, however John Scott had concerns that this issue was not moving forward fast enough. Derek Ross commented that he supported the views of John Scott and added that it needed to be addressed in a collective way without losing sight of the wider agenda. The Chairman thanked the Committee for their comments.

4 4 HSEC/07/M John Scott commented that Clive Johnson had changed jobs and enquired whether he would be continuing in his role of representing the NSCC at CONIAC. Kevin was unsure but added that should there be a vacancy the Secretariat for CONIAC would request a nomination from the Specialist sector. 22. The HSEC noted the reports. ITEM 7 : WORKING WELL TOGETHER ESSENTIAL E PROJECT (PRESENTATION BY TIM SHAMBROOK) 23. Tim Shambrook provided members with a presentation on the Essential E Project. He informed Members that the project would be trialed as a whole package before being rolled out to the whole country. 24. Andrew Pears was concerned that the Essential E could give a message that this initiative offered small contractors a quick-fix for health, safety and environmental issues. Andrew Pears continued that the first step should be to try and engage with small contractors to enable them to start to understand the issues. He continued that a number of significant changes to environmental legislation would take place during Kevin Fear agreed that views existed that free training could give the impression that the courses have no value and could result in non or low attendance. Tim Shambrook stated that the pilot scheme would look at the issues of attendance and they hoped that the offer of the Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme (CHAS) or other local authority registration would provide an added incentive for small contractors to attend. John Scott added his support for any effort to get Small and Medium Employers (SMEs) on the radar as engaging with SMEs, in a meaningful way, had always been a problem. He continued that the project would be given more creditability if there was an environmental and business representative alongside ConstructionSkills for health and safety. John Scott suggested that the one day training for health and safety along with a 40 minute paper test could become part of the ConstructionSkills Health and Safety Test. The Chairman agreed that the health and safety element could be focused around the CSCS card. [Secretary s Note: A copy of the presentation is attached at Appendix A to the minutes.] 25. The Chairman extended his thanks to Tim Shambrook for the presentation. 26. The HSEC noted the presentation. ITEM 8 : PROPOSED MEETING DATES FOR The following dates were agreed. Tuesday 18 March 2008 Wednesday 16 July 2008 Wednesday 12 November 2008

5 5 HSEC/07/M20 Sustainability Presentation ITEM 9 : ANY OTHER BUSINESS 28. The Chairman informed Members that he had listened to an interesting presentation from Annie Hall on Sustainability. It was agreed to invite her to a future meeting. Secretariat Health and Safety Critical Communication Skills for migrant workers 29. Members were informed that the ConstructionSkills Health and Safety critical communication skills project had the objective of securing research and development into critical health and safety communication skills. Members were notified that currently there were no statistics that linked accidents with workers who do not use English as there first language. The project intends to develop tools to assist migrant workers to be trained in critical health and safety communication skills and for these to be tested. Modules for the Site Manager s Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS) course would provide managers and supervisors with the skills needed to communicate with workers who do not have English as their first language. Development of National Occupational Standards for CDM Coordinator 30. CIC is currently co-ordinating an industry working group to develop National Occupational Standards (NOS) for the role of Construction Design and Management (CDM) coordinators. Kevin Fear was part of the working group and agreed to keep the HSEC informed of progress. Kevin Fear HSTQSC 31. Haydn Steele reported that, as there had been no issues with the ConstructionSkills Health and Safety test to discuss, the HSTQSC had not met recently. The HSTQSC tended to be at it busiest when any changes were required to the Health and Safety test, for example when changes occurred in legislation. Haydn Steele continued that there had been disappointment from members of the Committee that the recent meeting had been cancelled due to lack of agenda items. He commented that there had been agreement to reduce the frequency of meetings from four to three per year. However he now felt that the number of meetings should be reduced further to two meetings per year. However, this would be reviewed when there was period of high activity. 32. John Scott commented that since the PQP test was introduced there had been problems with ConstructionSkills sending out the wrong book for the wrong test. Kevin Fear advised that although the general book had specialist areas within it, the reason for having two separate books was to achieve clarity. Haydn Steele suggested that this should be put forward on the next HSTQSC agenda. John Scott added that if different books were necessary there should be more clarity in the introductions. Secretariat 33. John Scott suggested reintroducing one day training in preparation for the health and safety test rather than revising from the book alone, which is deemed more of a memory test. Haydn Steele agreed this was a concern; however this was an issue that needed to be addressed directly with CSCS.

6 6 HSEC/07/M20 CDM Guidance Document web-site hits 34. Kevin Fear circulated figures that reported the number of web-site hits for the CDM Guidance Documents. It was noted that there has been a reduction in the number of visits to the web-site. Maintenance and Best practice guidance for tower cranes 35. Haydn Steele has attended a working group, chaired by HSE and formed in April of this year to address concerns over fatal accident statistics in respect of Tower Cranes. The group had prepared a draft document regarding Maintenance and Best Practice Guidance for tower cranes and this had now been released for public consultation. Haydn Steele offered to Members a copy if required and comments should be addressed to Tim Watson by 31 December Haydn Steele also advised that guidance on self adjusting tower cranes was also available on the HSE website. Haydn Steele Environmental Legislation 36. Andrew Pears reported that several pieces of new environmental legislation would be implemented next year. He kindly offered to brief the HSEC with presentations on waste management plans at the next HSEC meeting. The Chairman thanked Andrew Pears and agreed this was an important issue, Members would be delighted to take him up on his offer. Secretariat Accident Statistics 37. Ben Legg reported that Major Contractors Group (MCG) accident rates had increased during the current quarter. There had been considerable discussion at the MCG about why this had happened and three critical areas had been identified, supervisors, designer safety tools and safety critical workers. The Chairman commented that the statistics were disappointing and the general feeling was that supervisors did not understand the basic principals of risk assessments. He continued that the largest proportion of failings for the health and safety test were Supervisors and Managers which was very concerning. Neil England added the Supervisors course has been introduced by ConstructionSkills into the Site Safety Plus suite of courses for that very reason and it was proving to be very popular and successful. ITEM 10 : DATE OF NEXT MEETING 38. The next meeting will be held at 10.30am on Tuesday 18 March 2007 at ConstructionSkills, Carthusian Court, 12 Carthusian Street, London, EC1M 6EZ 6 December 2007