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HSE more than trebles the number of Directors prosecuted for safety offences

Research by law firm Clyde & Co. has shown that the number of HSEcompany directors prosecuted by HSE in the year to 31 March 2016 more than trebled from 15 to 46 persons.  In the same period the number of employees prosecuted has fallen from 10 persons to just 1.

According to the research of these 46 prosecutions 34 were found guilty and 12 were given prison sentences, the longest of which was 2 years.

We can only reach one conclusion from the data above and it confirms what we have seen from assisting the thousands of clients across the UK in both construction and industry, and that is that HSE are pursuing clients with a zeal not seen in the past 20 years.

A second conclusion seems to be that prosecutions against employees are becoming less likely, and perhaps less attractive to the enforcer.  Prosecutions against corporate bodies and directors bring with them valuable income from FFI at a time when the regulator is facing budget cuts. Its seems unlikely that the situation will change in the near future and change which could see all businesses covered by HSE from next year to increase the number of fines and prosecutions still further (see our post on this here).

If you’d like to know more about Directors responsibilities please read the HSE guidance pages.  You may also want to look at the advice provided by the Institute of Directors and also IOSH.

Contact us on 01453 800100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or use contact us on 01453 800100

 

Posted by Roger Hart

Dusts in construction (RCS), their risks and how to manage them

dust RCS crystalline silicaHealth in construction is a big issue and HSE are pushing hard to get the message out to clients of all sizes that health in construction is a very high risk.  The latest figures show that as many as 100 staff per week die from ill health causes through their job – and that’s just the construction sector!

With this in mind we are working with our clients to address these risks, educate their staff through training courses and toolbox talks and also running free sessions on the risks associated with construction dusts and how to manage them – the next of which is running in November 2016 at our offices in Stroud.  Check out this link for the talk which we gave to WWT (an HSE and Construction industry partnership organisation)

Dusts in construction (RCS), their risks and how to manage them

These talks won’t just give you an understanding of the risk present, they’ll give you clear and workable advice on how to manage them through changes in working practices and tool selection, we’ll also have expert advice from Dust Control UK on what equipment you can use to clean up dusts without exposing your staff and your clients to cancer causing Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS).

We’ll update you on the free course and also put a booking link here as soon as its live on our Eventbrite page, in the meantime feel free to look at these Workers Stories from HSE to give you some useful resources to raise the issue of construction dusts with your staff and click here to see HSE’s latest Health in Construction – The Facts poster HSE;

 

Posted by Roger Hart

The compensation (no win no fee) cases still keep coming… but why?

OS Logo EmailBack in 2013 we wrote a post informing you of the changes which were made on strict liability which links directly to no win no fee liability; read our original post here

A number of changes were put together which aimed to cap the costs charged by solicitors and to remove the incentive to make speculative claims against businesses.  These changes included making  insurance costs against losing the case non recoverable by solicitors and any premiums payable by the claimant only, later that year were also saw the removal of strict liability in health and safety cases.

However, this has only had limited success and the claims adds and ambulance chasers are still out there and earning a very healthy living.

What can you do to protect your business from No Win No Fee

Great question!  A few simple measures will help introduce some protection and don’t forget that insurers are now much less likely to concede a claim than they were a few years ago.  In fact, we know of insurers employing the services of specialists claims investigation teams of claims of under £10,000 – something which was unheard of a year or two ago.

Here’s a list of simple things you can do now with no real cost impact to give you protection in the event of one of these claims hitting your business;

  1. Consider CCTV; having evidence of what happened is liability gold dust and could see the case dismissed entirely, if you’re considering the cost benefit make sure you consider this benefit when talking to installers;
  2. Get savvy on accident recording and investigation; perhaps the biggest single change to to take photo (as many as you can) and gather signed witness statements from everyone on the day the accident happens and as close to the time of the event as is humanly possible;
  3. Look at your current arrangements for health surveillance – we can help you with this, issues such as occupational deafness are the new whiplash for the ambulance chasers (see our 2014 post warning you of this here);
  4. If you receive a claims letter don’t respond to it!  Contact your insurer and put it into their hands, no matter what the content, leave it to their legal team to handle in the best way possible to protect you;
  5. If you think you may have a claim against you from an employee contact your insurer, they may be able to deal directly with a claimant and save you thousands if you have had a genuine accident and one of your staff is injured.

We hope you’ve found the above useful, as always, if you have questions please do call your retained consultant or if you’re not yet a client please get in touch with us directly using the links below.

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or request a call back.

Posted by Roger Hart

HSE enforcement under review, could HSE cover offices, shops and small business?

HSEIn a move which we suspected might come to pass some years ago it has been announced that health and safety enforcement may change for smaller businesses.

During July 2016 the HSE ran a consultation on health and safety enforcement allocation.  Chiefly, it looked at the role of the local authorities.  A range of options were considered, ranging from completely absorbing the LAs’ regulatory powers for health and safety, to allocating them greater duties.

This is something which we discussed on our Breakfast Club sessions for clients and on this blog some years ago.  We believe that this is likely to come to pass and the reason will be to bring the lucrative Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme into play for smaller businesses.

Passing the enforcement role to HSE from overworked EHO’s achieves three goals of the government as we see it;

  1. It eases the burden on councils at a time when their budgets are under stress from central government funding;
  2. It enables the introduction of Fee for Intervention (fee based enforcement) for the remainder of UK workplaces enabling it to reach smaller businesses and drive in additional revenue;
  3. The current situation for sectors such as the motor trade / motor vehicle repair are split untidily between HSE and the LA’s, this change would enable a simpler co-ordinated approach to this type of business which currently falls between HSE and FFI fines and the LA EHO’s and no FFI.

Likely timescales

So, when is this likely to happen?  Well, nothing in government moves quickly and so we won’t see any update on the consultation until 2017 with any changes happening in late 2017.  However, we do think a change is on the way and HSE are recruiting, watch this space…

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or request a call back.

Posted by Roger Hart

Free Event on Working at Height, Barnstaple 20 Oct. 2016 WWT and HSE

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from experts on exactly how to HSEkeep you staff safe when working at height. To secure a place(s) please complete the registration page at: Book your free place now!

The construction industry has taken huge strides forward in tackling risk and reducing injury rateOS Logo Emails over recent years but still has a significant opportunity to make our high-hazard industry safer still and to drive down the alarming rates of accident and ill health linked to construction work in particular to refurbishment projects.

Event Programme
08:30 – 09:00 REGISTRATION TEA/COFFEE
09:00 – 09:15 Welcome and introduction
09:15 – 12:30 The programme will consist of talks and demonstrations on:

  1. Asbestos Awareness
  2. Working at Height
  3. Scaffolding
  4. Dust and Face Fit Testing
  5. Manual Handing

Mid-morning Break will include Tea/Coffee with Breakfast Roll. You will be asked to complete a feedback form in return for an  attendance certificate.

The event will consist of talks and demonstrations with the opportunity to ask questions from those within the industry as well as an HSE inspector.

Whether you are a self-employed jobbing builder or run a small building company this free event is a must. Places at this event are limited and it is likely to be highly popular – BOOK NOW!

Petroc College of Further Education,
Old Sticklepath Hill,
Barnstaple,
EX31 2BQ

Parking facilities are available on site. The college currently  operate a pay and display system on the premises at a cost of £1.00 per day, per vehicle.

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or use our contact us page.

Posted by Roger Hart

Takeaway owner sentenced for Fire Safety Offences

The owner of a Gloucester takeaway (Best Takeaway, 136 Eastgate Street, Gloucester) has this week been prosecuted for serious breaches of fire safety legislation.best_takeaway_interior

Ilhami Ince, originally of London,  appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates Court on the 15th August 2016 for failing to comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

This hearing followed an earlier failure to appear resulting in a warrant being issued for his arrest. Throughout the investigation the lack of co-operation from Mr Ince repeatedly frustrated the process of making the premises safe in the event of fire thereby failing to protect the persons who had been placed at risk.

In July 2014, a multi-agency inspection of the premises was carried out supported by Gloucester City Council and Gloucestershire Constabulary. Fire Safety Enforcement Officers found that unauthorised sleeping accommodation for staff had been provided on the first and second floors and that a fire alarm system had not been provided and the structural fire precautions were insufficient to allow safe escape in the event of fire.

The Fire Safety breaches identified in the premises were so serious that death or serious injury would be imminent in the event of fire. This resulted in the first and second floors being prohibited from use.

Further investigations found that the ‘prohibition notice’ was being breached and staff were sleeping on the first and second floors.

The defendant pleaded guilty to the following matters:

  1. Failure to comply with the prohibition notice on 3 occasions 24th September 2014, 8th October 2014, 7th July 2015.
  2. Ground floor door between the takeaway and escape route was not fire-resisting.
  3. Employees were not provided with fire safety training.
  4. Two bedroom doors on the first floor were not fire-resisting.
  5. Two bedroom doors on the second floor were not fire-resisting.
  6. One bedroom door was so small a person had to crawl through it to exit and enter.
  7. A kitchen was situated within the first floor escape route.
  8. Emergency lighting was not provided.
  9. No fire alarm and smoke detectors were provided.
  10. A Fire Risk Assessment had not been completed.
  11. No fire safety information provided to employees

Ince was sentenced to 4 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months and was also ordered to pay full costs of £11,228.04 plus victim surcharge.

Cllr Nigel Moor, cabinet member responsible for fire, said:

“Fire safety law is there to ensure that occupants of premises are safe.

“Although we would prefer to work alongside business owners to make sure they comply with law, sometimes prosecution is the only reasonable outcome. Our priority is to ensure that Gloucestershire a safe place to live, work and visit.

“This prosecution sends a strong message to the business community to ensure that fire regulations are taken seriously.”

Chief fire officer Stewart Edgar said: “The targeted inspections highlighted some serious fire safety concerns in a number of premises that provided staff accommodation, so immediate action has been taken.

“The fire service is now working with these businesses to make sure their fire safety is brought up to standard. A fire in a commercial premises would have a devastating impact on both the employer and employee and the outcome could be a large fine or imprisonment in serious cases.”

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or request a call back.

Posted by Roger Hart

Solar panel installer falls through fragile asbestos roof, company fined more than £20,000

Norwich-based Solar panel installer Durrant Electrical and Mechanical Ltd, trading as Green Home Energy Solutions, had admitted a single charge of breaching working at height regulations on September 26, 2013.

Solar panel installer falls through fragile asbestos roof, company fined more than £20,000

The accident occurred when employee Chris Eldon was measuring up an asbestos roof on a tractor shed at Woodland Farm, near Watton.  He was completing this work without the use of crawling boards.

Klentiana Mahmutaj, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said Mr Eldon suffered severe concussion, a fractured wrist and bruising to the base of his spine when it gave way and he fell 2m to the solar_farm_imageground.

An HSE investigation had found the company had carried out an inadequate risk assessment and planning for working on an inadequate roof.  The HSE Inspector added no-one from Durrant Electrical and Mechanical had been on site to brief Mr Eldon before he and apprentice Kyll Staff had started work.

“What should have happened was for the roof to be assessed by a competent person, who would have concluded it was fragile,” she said, adding falling from a roof could often lead to death or serious injuries.

Julia Kendrick, defending the firm, said Mr Eldon had worked for the company since 2011 and had been been given training in health and safety and working at heights. She added: “He was very experienced and he had significant training to make him aware of the risks which were inherent in the kind of work he was undertaking.

“The injured person had completed more than 100 installations. He was a supervisor on some jobs and they considered him extremely competent. Systems were in place but were not sufficiently adhered to or implemented.”

Durrant Electrical and Mechanical had had to lay off workers after a downturn in the renewables sector, the court was told. After making a £95,000 profit in 2015, it had so far lost £25,000 this year.

“They are struggling to pay their workers and stay afloat,” said Miss Kendrick, adding the company had no previous accidents or convictions.

Under the new sentencing guidelines firms can be fined between £14,000 and £250,000 for breaches. Judge Sell ordered it to pay £14,000, with £7,000 costs, commenting: “I’ve certainly not seen any evidence of serious or systemic failings to assess risks to health and safety.”

Durrent Electrical and Mechanical was given two years to pay.

After the hearing directors Kerry and Debbie Durrant, who were present in court, declined to comment.

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or request a call back.

Posted by Roger Hart

How did that accident happen? Motion induced blindness

So, here you are.  Steadily driving your way home along a motorway, mile after mile and junction after junction, perhaps in kind of semi aware state casually glancing at the sat nav, speedo or rear view mirror.  Every now and then you find yourself simply gazing at the view ahead and seconds turn into minutes and then half an hour passes without you realising it.

Motion induced blindnessmotion induced blindness

It should do because almost everyone that I’ve spoken to has experienced it, particularly on long and familiar journeys with a steady pace and light traffic, the M5 heading past Bristol and into the Southwest is a good example on a weekday afternoon, clear of bank holiday traffic.

The truth is this drifting state is dangerous and its not just when you’re on a motorway.

We often wonder when we come to look at an accident just how it happened.  We are given the gift of 20/20 hindsight of course and its always hard to put yourself in that persons position to the extent that you can truly appreciate the thought processes they went through.  You are there to try and identify the root causes – that’s why its worth knowing about motion induced blindness as a principle and also raising it with your staff as an issue before these accidents have a chance to occur.

Visual and optical phenomena and safety

So, how do we get this message out there to vehicle fleet drivers, fork lift truck operators, motorcyclists and a whole other raft of people who might benefit?  As usual, by training and education – and a very neat graphic courtesy of the internet.

Stare at the central yellow dot and keep looking, do the other three dots then start to disappear?  That’s motion induced blindness.

Now imagine yourself at a busy crossroads waiting to pull out with pedestrians and other waiting to cross – can you spot that motorbike approaching?

Or perhaps you’re a a forklift truck driver in a busy warehouse passing by aisles and with pallet movers and pedestrian pickers all around you.

What next?

Use the video above in your training sessions when you have fork lift truck refreshers or new driver training, hold a toolbox talks for those who drive as part of their job (road users or otherwise) or ask us to complete a toolbox talk on your behalf to raise awareness.

How to combat motion induced blindness

You may still be wondering, why the jet fighter image at the top of the page? Fighter pilots are taught a technique to overcome this weakness in the way we process our view of the world around us and its very simple but very effective – you keep you head moving.  Don’t believe me?  Keep moving your head whilst re-watching the video above and you’ll see the difference – make sure that’s a key part of your training session.

As always, we hope you’ve found the information above interesting and feel you can use it to make a positive change in how you actively manage risk in your workplace.

About: Roger Hart  is Managing Director of Outsource Safety Ltd, a consultancy specialising in ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 Management Systems.  The company employs 10 staff and works for hundreds of retained clients across the UK in all sectors from Defence and Aerospace to Education and Museums with a specialism in the contracting, construction and renewables sectors, www.outsource-safety.co.uk

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or use our contact us page.

Posted by Roger Hart

Is there a case for intuition in safety?

Sintuition safetyometimes you just feel that something isn’t right, you can’t explain exactly why but you have that feeling, your subconscious is telling you to look a little more closely or probe a bit deeper.  We think there is a case for intuition in safety and here’s why.

I read an interesting article recently by Dr Travis Bradberry.  It discusses the role the subconscious has in guiding our actions and asks us to use these feelings more to guide us in our decision-making, it contains an interesting quote;

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” – Jonas Salk

In a study by the Salk Institute participants were asked to play a card game by pulling cards from two different decks, unknown to them the decks were rigged.  Its took around 50 cards for these participants to realise something was unequal and about 80 cards to realise what the actual difference was.

However, after just 10 cards most players starting to sweat slightly on their palms before pulling a card from the ‘losing’ deck, at about the same time they started subconsciously favouring the ‘winning’ deck.

The above study serves to demonstrate the power of intuition, something which comes from the primitive brain and which served us well in days where danger was all around us, and something which we should, perhaps, be happier to rely on more often in our modern lives.

Is there a case for intuition in safety?

If you remain unconvinced why not try a little game, stare intently at the back of someone’s head in the office or walking down a corridor. Perhaps you’re sat across a table or hall from someone you know at lunch.  The wait and see how long it takes them to raise their head and search for the person looking at them, it might not work every time but I think you’ll be surprised at how often it does (and if you do know them don’t forget to at least nod a hello!).

So next time you’re completing a safety tour, audit or inspection don’t be afraid to slow down and listen to your gut feeling, it might lead you in the right direction.

About: Roger Hart  is Managing Director of Outsource Safety Ltd, a consultancy specialising in ISO9001, ISO14001 and ISO45001 Management Systems.  The company employs 10 staff and works for hundreds of retained clients across the UK in all sectors from Defence and Aerospace to Education, Additve Manufacture and Museums with a specialism in the contracting, construction and renewables sectors, www.outsource-safety.co.uk

Contact us on 01453 800 100 if you need expert help with health and safety for a fixed cost or use our contact us page.

Posted by Roger Hart

Occupational Health: Styrene Vapour Prosecution, Templetown Canopies Ltd

We’ve carried out many monitoring programmes which have involved exposure to styrene vapour over the past 20 or so years.  The substance is in common use and because of this businesses and their staff can sometimes become too familiar with the substance and fail to take adequate precautions.

We also have heard staff assuring us that they don’t need to use protective equipment as they have developed a tolerance or even an immunity to styrene’s effects – wouldn’t it be good if that could ever be the case…

In the case below styrene exposure simply wasn’t guarded against and although HSE Inspectors know that small businesses have pressures on them they quite rightly won’t allow this as an excuse to endanger the health of their employees.

If you need occupation health advice, air monitoring for styrene or any other safety support please speak to your retained advisor or contact us on 01453 800100 to get some sound advice.

Solar panel installer falls through fragile asbestos roof, company fined more than £20,000

Templetown Canopies Limited from Tyneside has been prosecuted over the lack of controls regarding the use of the hazardous substance styrene during the production of fibre glass door and window canopies.

Styrene exposure causes irritation to the nose, throat and lungs and neurological effect including difficulty in concentrating, drowsiness, headaches and nausea.

HSE inspected the company premises in May 2013 issued an Improvement Notice. However, the company did not take action to comply with the Notice until they moved premises in March 2015 failing to adequately control exposure of their employees to styrene.

An extraction system should also have been in place to remove the heavier than air vapours and RPE provided with the correct filters (FFP3) to protect operators.

Employees exposed to styrene vapour for almost 2 years

Templetown Canopies Limited, of Shaftsbury Avenue, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 7(1) of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) and was fined £8,500 and ordered to pay costs of £4,500.

Speaking after the hearing HSE Inspector Fiona McGarry said:

“Workers’ health was put at risk from exposure to styrene for a period of 22 months, even after the company had been made aware of the actions it needed to take.

Whilst HSE is sympathetic to the pressures faced by small businesses, this is simply not acceptable. Employers need to take action to ensure they are providing adequate control to protect the health of their employees.”

Posted by Roger Hart