Health and Safety in Construction

In the case of the 1985 Regulations, withdrawing them has made the process of delivering health and safety on construction sites more straight forward as they contained reference to standards of risk control which were outdated and less effective than those supported by modern European based legislation and other regulations in place within the Isle of Man. Before the change many construction companies were confused over the standards they should have been applying which resulted in significant inconsistency in the way health and safety was managed across sites in the Isle of Man.

The 1999 Regulations were removed as the need to consider head protection was already included in existing legislation. The specific reference to construction in the title also created the false impression that it was the only sector in which head injury risks needed to be considered.

Risks should be identified by carrying out a risk assessment. This is the process of analysing the activities and hazards which are likely to take place, or be present, within an undertaking, identifying the level of risk to which employees and others might be exposed and introducing effective control measures.

It is extremely important that construction risks assessments focus on the activities that are specific to individual projects as every site can generate a completely different set of health and safety difficulties.

Simply supplying site supervisors and employees with a standard list of possible hazards from which they can pick the relevant options is unlikely to be effective as such an approach would fail to capitalise on the benefits that can be obtained through good planning and design.

Completing an adequate assessment of site specific issues before the construction work commences provides much better control over a project as potential difficulties can be ‘managed out’ before they can develop into incidents. This type of approach delivers commercial benefits as well as good health and safety results as projects are more likely to be completed on time and to budget.

Guidance on risk assessments is available via the Health and Safety at Work Inspectorates (HSWI) website www.gov.im/hswi and HSWI Inspectors will be happy to provide project specific advice. The HSWI contact number is +44 1624 685881.

It would be extremely unlikely. Asking HSWI for advice, particularly during the planning and design stage of a contract, would be a clear indicator that there was a pro-active interest in getting health and safety right.

If a request for advice was made after commencement of work, enforcement action would also be unlikely (unless extreme risks were identified) as the company/developer involved would have demonstrated a commitment to gaining a better understanding of health and safety.

Enforcement action is only usually considered when Inspectors encounter serious breaches of legislation during visits to sites where work has already commenced – and even in these circumstances a decision to take enforcement action will depend on a number of issues such as the willingness of the contractor to implement the necessary improvements or whether the contractor has ignored previous advice provided by HSWI in the past.

If you are not sure about any construction health and safety issues or if you require advice on how to comply with The Health and Safety at Work Act or The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations please contact the HSWI on +44 1624 685881.

The UK Health and Safety Executives (HSE) website contains extensive free guidance on measures that can be used to achieve proportionate levels of control over a wide range of construction sector risks. As the UK and Manx regulatory frameworks are based on the same principle of reasonable practicability, an effective way of achieving compliance with Manx legislation would be to adopt the measures supported in HSE guidance.

The HSE’s website can be accessed via the following link www.hse.gov.uk