"Does it have to be this way?" - last chance for construction

The HSE is not yet able to calculate the rate of fatalities for April-December 2000 - an important contextual descriptor - because it does not know how many people were working in the industry in the same period. The industry's fatality rate rose in 1999/2000 to 4.5 per 100,000 workers, from 3.8 in 1998/99, and the likelihood is that it is set to rise again.

Nor does the HSE have accurate figures for major and over-three-day injuries for 2000/01, although Bill Callaghan told the conference that the HSE had received reports of around 11,000 "other" injuries between April and December 2000. Table 2 shows that the number of major injuries has risen steadily since 1996/97, when new reporting Regulations (RIDDOR) widened the definition of a major injury. The rate has fluctuated, however, as has the number and rate of over-three-day injuries.

Reasons for the rise

The HSE's Chief Inspector of Construction, Kevin Myers, speculates that the number of fatalities may have risen for several reasons:

The causes

"We are not talking rocket science," said John Prescott of the immediate causes of construction deaths. The HSE listed the main causes, and their solutions, in late 2000. They are, according to Kevin Myers, "straightforward and well known". Almost half of all construction fatalities, for example, are caused by falls from height.

There is also consensus - accepted in varying degrees by the construction partners - as to the underlying causes:

The targets

The Government and HSC's Revitalising health and safety initiative (Employers face major health and safety at work shake-up), launched in June 2000, set targets for reductions in the incidence of work-related injuries and ill health. The HSC invited its Industry Advisory Committees (IACs) to agree targets in their own sectors: those set by CONIAC (the construction IAC) exceed those set by Revitalising. The CONIAC targets are:

Kevin Myers, who chairs CONIAC, said: "The targets are challenging and exceed those set by the Government and the HSC - and rightly so. Compared to other UK industries, construction has an appalling record, which has deteriorated in 2000. We must all work together to achieve the step change in performance."

In addition to these targets, UCATT has called for a cut in fatalities of 25% in five years, decreasing to zero in 20 years. Sir John Egan's July 1998 government-commissioned report on the industry, Rethinking construction, asks leading-edge companies to secure a 20% year-on-year reduction in accidents.

If realised, the CONIAC targets would mean that the 4,717 major injuries and fatalities reported in 1999/2000 should fall to around 1,700 in 2009/10, with a corresponding two-thirds decline in the 1999/2000 rate of 270.1 fatal and major injuries per 100,000 workers. But realisation of these targets may be even more difficult than might first seem to be the case. This is because the fatal and major injury baseline is set at 1999/2000 levels, when the number of fatalities was fewer than is already the case for 2000/01. Although the indicator will be the rate, rather than the total, there seems little dispute that the fatality rate will also rise by April 2001. The unknown quantity is the major injury rate and total for 2000/01; if this follows the pattern for fatalities, the reduction required of the industry on 2000/01 levels will be far more than 40% and 66%.

On the health target, the HSE warns that undetected illnesses with extended latency periods that have already been contracted will adversely affect statistics, and that it "may take some time before marked improvements will be seen". The most important indicator of work-related illness yet - based on a trailer to the 1995 Labour Force Survey¹ - estimated that the construction industry accounted for 96,000 cases of musculoskeletal disorder, 15,000 cases of respiratory disease, 6,000 cases of skin disease and 5,000 cases of noise-induced hearing loss. Diseases with long latency periods - such as those caused by asbestos - will also need to be taken into account in considering the full picture.

Realisation of the third target would mean that the number of working days lost in construction would fall to less than one million by 2009/10. This target is based on 1995/96 levels, when over 1.2 million working days were lost in the industry from work-related ill health and over 0.6 million from work-related injury.

The HSE recognises the paucity of data quality, particularly around ill-health measures. It warns that its attempts to improve the accuracy of the statistics may result in changes in the baselines and targets. Other issues that may affect the figures include injury reporting levels and demographic and economic changes. The HSC will discuss these issues, and explain its approach to setting the baselines, in a forthcoming statistical note.

THE ACTION PLANS

The key to realising the targets are actions plans prepared by 10 umbrella groups, representing most of the construction supply chain. The groups prepared their plans in response to an invitation from the HSC. Bill Callaghan told the conference that although the main responsibility for making the improvements falls onto contractors, they could not act alone. "Clients set the climate in which work is done. Designers specify what is to be done. Suppliers provide materials and information. Contractors manage the work and workers build whatever is wanted. Government, educators, HSE and all the other groups represented here today all have a part to play . . . In asking all our stakeholders to draw up their own action plans to meet these targets, I am making a point about responsibility for owning the problem."

Each plan consists of between one and five action points/problems - many of which are similar or inter-related. Each group then uses a proforma question and answer approach to explain how it is going to tackle each action point:

"

The Construction Industry Board and CONIAC will coordinate actions taken under the safety plans and targets. The HSC/E will run a follow-up conference in October.

The full action plan for the Construction Industry Board is reproduced in box 3 on p.16. Examples of one specific action from each of the other groups' plans are given below.

Construction Confederation

The Construction Confederation states it will tackle the "confusing" training requirements and schemes that exist within the industry. It reports that its federations have committed to achieving a fully qualified workforce by 2010, and that it will work with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Confederation of Construction Clients towards one scheme for construction. It will also work with the CITB to develop an NVQ level 1 card (or equivalent).

The confederation will judge success on whether or not there is: an improvement in the standard of training within the industry; an easy-to-follow training path; a card available to everybody in construction; and an overall reduction in accidents on site. The confederation will communicate its initiative to the workforce and other organisations through Newsline, direct contact with subcontractors and the CITB network. Finally, it hopes to have the systems in place by 2005, with a fully qualified workforce by 2010.

Major Contractors Group

The Major Contractors Group will tackle the high number of reportable injuries and incidents within the construction industry by adopting a target of a 10% year-on-year reduction in the rate of all reportable accidents and incidents until 2010. It intends having in place a fully qualified workforce by the end of 2003. From 1 April 2001, it will ensure that everyone working on an MCG site undergoes a site-specific health and safety induction process before they start work, and that all workers on MCG sites are consulted on health and safety matters in a three-tier system based on project, work gang and individual. Starting in March 2001, the group was due to hold best practice workshops; from 1 June 2001, it aims to set up a system to disseminate lessons learnt from health and safety incidents. It will also publish an annual report of members' safety performance as a group, beginning in May 2001.

The measure of success will be whether or not there is a reduction in the incidence rate of reportable accidents and incidents. The group will communicate its initiative to the workforce by producing a Charter containing the headline targets and a detailed strategy paper with supporting reference documents. It will distribute the material to all member companies. MCG member companies will communicate the requirements of this strategy to all subcontractors and suppliers in their supply chains. The work will be ongoing, with progress reviewed annually.

Construction Industry Council

The Construction Industry Council aims to improve designers' compliance with the health and safety requirements of reg. 13 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, and hence their contribution to the pre-tender health and safety plan and the health and safety file. This will involve: the audit and certification of health and safety competence in design management, initially on a voluntary basis; continuing professional development programmes with risk management and complementary health and safety matters; and a more accessible designers' handbook for medium-sized and smaller projects.

The council will judge the success of the three components respectively through: voluntary acceptance of the need for certification and clients' demand for certification; normal monitoring and uptake by professional institutions' CPD programmes; and uptake of the publication and feedback from users. It will communicate its actions with the workforce and other organisations through: memoranda to principal executive officers and associate members, supplemented by widely-distributed information notes; reports to council committees; and its website. The timetable for the three components is, respectively: ongoing; December 2002, then ongoing; and March 2003.

Construction Products Association

The Construction Products Association will tackle inconsistent and inadequate health and safety information from product suppliers on installation, safe handling, packaging and toxic substances. It will do this through: an audit of the health and safety information that is provided by product manufacturers and suppliers; developing a recommended format for such data, in association with other members of the supply chain; and encouraging sector-specific trade associations to persuade their member companies to adopt the format.

The association will judge success by: the extent to which the agreed format is adopted; and the reduction of product-related accidents and health risks on site, in line with industry targets, with the means of measurement to be developed with the HSE. It will communicate the initiative to the workforce and other organisations through its trade association group and network club, association publications, workshops, seminars and trade press. It expects to finish the work by the end of 2002.

Constructors Liaison Group

The Constructors Liaison Group intends tackling the fragmented approach to health and safety in the specialist engineering and specialist contracting sectors of the construction industry. The group proposes establishing a high-level health and safety forum to develop strategy and action plans to drive forward the necessary improvements in the specialist engineering sectors, and collaborate with other construction sectors on pan-industry, single-issue campaigns.

The group will measure success by collecting accident data and monitoring progress achieved over the 10-year Revitalising period. It will cascade the information from the forum to its workforce through existing channels, particularly the joint employer/union health and safety bodies. Additional communication will involve regular newsletters to employers and the trade press, the provision of seminars and courses, and websites. The initiative will be a continuous process, commencing in spring 2001.

Trades Union Congress

The TUC aims to improve the competence of a workforce it describes as "skilled but unqualified". It states that "knowledge of health and safety, like other skills, is developed piecemeal through experience on the job, and is patchy among younger and new workers. Safety reps need additional skills to deliver on the new approach to health and safety in construction." The TUC explains that unions will improve competence by: supporting the target of 100% certification for construction workers, and negotiating arrangements for certificating/assessing skills already developed by workers; encouraging members to participate in training and raising awareness of what is available; and providing training in health and safety through toolbox talks and work-based training.

The TUC says it will have been successful if, by 2004, every worker in construction has a certificate of basic training in health and safety. It will communicate its efforts through union journals, which will carry a regular bulletin on union action, and site bulletins, leaflets and TUC/union websites. The TUC will issue a pledge card to construction workers setting out what unions can do for them on health and safety, and what they can do for themselves. It will also target employers through HSE publications, health and safety and trade journals, and with details of union training.

Clients

One of themes returned to by speaker after speaker was the role of the client. John Prescott told the audience that: "Clients must learn that squeezing prices or completion dates too hard results in corner-cutting, more deaths, more injuries and ill health." The Confederation of Construction Clients has produced a "Clients Charter" that allows clients to benchmark their performance, and encourages them to use national key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure their own standards. In signing up, clients commit themselves to preparing a programme of cultural change, with targets, for at least three years. They must register their programmes and measure their performance. They must construct their programme around criteria such as leadership, product team integration, quality and people. The last category comprises training and "Adopting a policy of respect for all people involved in construction activity (health, safety and welfare, site conditions, diversity, training and certification)." Safety is also one of the seven national KPIs.²

The Government is, of course, the largest client of all, commissioning up to half of the UK's construction contracts. Nick Raynsford and Beverley Hughes, respectively the Minister and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for construction, accepted that the Government and its agencies must take a lead. They told delegates that the Government was taking action as a client in three areas. First, it was considering across departments how it could look at contracts and incentives. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC), for example, will be issuing a new procurement guide for government bodies. Secondly, each department will provide a record of its health and safety performance to the OGC, which will publish annual reports on their performance. Thirdly, an independent team will review all government construction contracts at milestones, and health and safety would be a consideration in these "gateway reviews". Mr Raynsford said he would also be inviting local authorities and other public bodies to implement similar reporting systems. On a macro level, he said that the Government had to ensure a stable, steady and predictable workload through low inflation and steady growth.

Specific issues

In a conference that covered every aspect of construction health and safety, it is invidious to highlight particular issues. Nevertheless, the following are worth highlighting.

STILL WORKING WELL TOGETHER?

One of the most notable aspects of the conference was the lack of explicit reference to the Working Well Together (WWT) campaign, even though the Turning Concern Into Action initiative is part of WWT. This ongoing campaign, launched in May 1999, represented a major attempt to persuade the industry to publicly commit itself to action in areas known as the three "Cs" - competence, communication and cooperation". The campaign - like the new initiative - involved each of the major construction stakeholders drawing up an action plan for achieving improvements.

At the WWT launch, Alan Meale, then Under Secretary of State for Health and Safety, told 150 senior construction personnel that he was "putting the industry on notice" and that "failure to achieve high standards in health and safety is no longer an option." Mr Meale told the audience that he expected to see the industry achieve a 20% year-on-year drop in accidents - the target set out in Sir John Egan's Rethinking construction report. That 1999 conference, like the one almost two years' later, was upbeat: Alan Crane, chair of the Construction Confederation, claimed in 1999: "We're in the process of a mood change that I've never seen in 35 years . . . including health and safety."

This optimism appeared to be borne out last year when HSE-commissioned research reported a high level of awareness within the industry of the WWT campaign. The HSE said the research showed that: "The campaign's core messages - to change the culture surrounding health and safety; to encourage workers to be more health and safety conscious; and to prompt employers to take a more proactive health and safety stance - are hitting their key targets."

Kevin Myers told HSB that while the campaign was having an effect, he was "not sure whether the movers and shakers took it on board" and that he would add a fourth "c" - compliance. He insists that the latest initiative represents a "repositioning", not an abandonment, of the campaign. Nor does it embody an HSE shift towards the stick and away from the carrot. Genuine partnership was needed: the acceptance by employers of the proposed "safety advisers" - who will be union-appointed and union-trained - would be an early test. He finds it difficult to believe, however, that an industry claiming to want a change in culture would not cooperate with safety advisers. A further test will be the extent to which the industry embraces a system of "near-miss" reporting.

The final opportunity

Summing the conference up, the Minister for housing and construction, Nick Raynsford, said that the half-day had "avoided the blame culture" that characterised the industry. There was a "widespread acceptance that things are unacceptable" and that "we're all in this together". The issues came down to culture; the industry would not improve without the support of the senior directors: "It goes right to the top."

Such sentiments were similarly prevalent at the WWT launch in 1999. Since then, the industry's safety performance has deteriorated. There is, however, cause for optimism. Whereas many of the 1999 plans were often just intentions, the 2001 action plans are already formulated - indeed many are up and running. The process that has resulted in the plans appears to have involved genuine consultation and thought. The commitment of the industry felt like it may be more than just words. The HSE and HSC have clearly gone to the edge. But as Kevin Myers warns: "The ultimate test of success will be whether this summit leads to real and sustainable change." The summit, he says, "is just the first step in getting the necessary commitment from all involved in the construction industry".

There remains what may prove to be the largest incentive of all: what happens if the industry does not put its house in order this time? The Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott left little uncertainty in the minds of anyone listening: "I want you to be in no doubt about the seriousness with which the Government takes this . . . Years of exhortation and discussion in the construction industry have had too small an effect on the rate of accidents and ill health. Obviously, we want to work with the industry. But we now have the opportunity of new legislation, an opportunity we will seize, if that is the only way we can make progress . . . This is the final opportunity for the industry to have a major shift in attitude and approach and to turn around its culture and its performance."

BOX 1: HSE ADVICE ON AVOIDING CONSTRUCTION DEATHS

BOX 2: THE ACTION PLANS

Eight of the 10 umbrella groups have placed their action plans on the Working Well Together website. Each plan consists of between one and five problems/action points; these are set out below. The plans elaborate each point using a proforma question and answer approach; an example is given in the box on p.16.

Construction Industry Board

1.Pan-industry commitment to a step change in safety.

2.Coordination of pan-industry action.

3.Improved analysis and understanding of statistics.

Construction Industry Council

1.Higher education: inadequate health and safety component and lack of integration in the majority of undergraduate courses.

2.Improving designers' compliance.

3.Feedback leading to understanding dearth of information about causal chains leading to accidents and about the priority of deploying resources to reduce accidents.

Construction Industry Employers' Council

1.Confusing training requirements and schemes within the construction industry.

2.Lack of worker involvement in health and safety issues, and lack of worker consultation.

3.Ill health within the industry and absence from work as a result of ill health and injury.

4.The high number of fatal and major injuries within the construction industry.

Construction Industry Training Board

1.Produce a coordinated campaign of events to improve the image of the construction industry.

2.Develop existing network of contacts to ensure all health and safety training materials reflect the needs of the industry and anticipate and explain the implications of new legislation.

3.Look at committing resources in terms of training material development, database mining and communication/marketing support for umbrella-body initiatives.

Construction Products Association

1.Inconsistent and inadequate health and safety information made available by product suppliers relating to installation, safe handling, packaging, toxic substances etc.

2.Inadequate channels of communication through the supply chain on health and safety problems related to products.

3.Lack of information about contribution of products to accidents and health risks on site.

Constructors Liaison Group

1.Step-change: encourage and assist the required step-change and to promote a cultural change in the approach to health and safety on construction sites from the CEO through to the workforce.

2.Fragmentation.

3.Involving the workforce.

4.Statistical data.

5.Skills certification.

Major Contractors Group

1.The high number of reportable injuries and incidents within the construction industry.

Trades Union Congress

1.Developing respect for a diverse workforce.

2.Developing representation and consultation of the workforce.

3.Improving the competence of the workforce.

4.Encouraging workers to raise health and safety concerns.

5.Encouraging worker participation in occupational health.

Two plans are not available on the site: the Confederation of Construction Clients and the Engineering Construction Industry Association.

BOX 3: CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY BOARD ACTION PLAN

¹"Self-reported work-related illness in 1995 - results of a household survey", HSC, HSE Books, ISBN 0 7176 1509 X, £30.

²"The clients' charter handbook", Confederation of Construction Clients, tel: 020 7931 9749, e-mail: CCCUK@aol.com, website: www.ClientSuccess.org