Construction industry renews its determination to health and safety commitments

HSE Press Release: E028:05 - 24 February 2005

Senior executives and union representatives from across the construction industry met this afternoon at a Construction Health and Safety Summit held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London to review progress on the health and safety commitments given at the Construction Summit in 2001, celebrate successes, and to commit to further action to further improve the industry’s health and safety performance.

The Strategic Forum launched a new ‘Respect for People’ code of practice for construction at the event. The code provides a unifying framework for action by all parts of the industry and highlights leading issues on which the industry intends to focus:

• Behavioural change;
• Occupational health and rehabilitation;
• Design;
• Corporate, and individual competence;
• Integrated working and worker engagement; and
• Benchmarking, and sharing best practice,

In her keynote speech, Jane Kennedy, Minister for Work at the Department for Work and Pensions said:

“I welcome the progress the industry made so far, but it is falling short of the challenging targets it set itself in 2001. The Construction Summit in 2001 was a watershed for many in accepting ownership for the industry’s health and safety performance. The commitment to challenging five- and ten-year targets for improvement was courageous and demonstrated the determination within the industry to drive through cultural change.

“One of the aims of today’s event is to celebrate progress since then. I congratulate the industry on what has been achieved - but we must not lose sight of continuing failures. I want to see stakeholders to take ownership of the health and safety challenges, show leadership in taking action and forge new partnerships to accelerate health and safety improvements.”

Nigel Griffiths, Under Secretary of State for Construction at the Department of Trade and Industry also addressed the delegates:

“Construction is one of the UK's most successful industry sectors with year on year growth regularly reported. It deserves credit that it is committing itself, through these Summits, to continuing improvement in its health and safety performance to match its business performance. A safe and healthy workforce will deliver projects on time and to budget - goals that meet all the aspirations of those attending today.”

Summing up at the conference, Bill Callaghan, Chair of the Health and Safety Commission (HSC), said:

“You, the construction industry, committed yourself to challenging targets at the 2001 Construction Summit. We are now at a critical stage, the industry is changing for the better and has achieved the lowest incident rates on record, but we cannot become complacent. If the industry is to meet its Revitalising targets, it needs to commit to further actions, be innovative, and above all respect the industry’s most valuable asset, its workforce.”

Mr Callaghan added:

“I welcome the ‘Respect for People’ code of practice, which I see as key in marking out the improvements we are looking for. The eight leading issues identified by the code are relevant to everyone, in all companies, in all sectors. They have come from you, the industry, those who are best placed to know where the greatest impact can be made. Through ownership, leadership and partnership in the leading issues you have identified, I am convinced that we can continue to make progress in the years ahead.”

Everyone can join in the health and safety debate through the HSE-web based Construction Discussion Forum, going live today at:

• http://webcommunities.hse.gov.uk/inovem/inovem.ti/group/construction/groupHome

Notes to editors

1. The 2001 Construction Summit was called by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, because of his awareness and growing concern about the industry’s poor health and safety record. Called ‘Turning concern into action’ it acknowledged the concern over the industry’s performance; agreed it had to improve; and the industry committed to a step change in performance. This was demonstrated through challenging targets and through Action Plans.

2. The industry set the following targets for improvement:

• Reduce the incidence rate of fatalities and major injuries by 40% by 2004/5 and 66% by 2009/10;
• Reduce the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health by 20% by 2004/5 and 50% by 2009/10:
• Reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers from work-related injury and ill health by 20% by 2004/5 and by 50% by 2009/10.

3. The industry’s achievements to date are:

• 2003/04 had the lowest incidence rates ever for all injuries: fatals, major and over 3 day.
• The fatal injury rate has fallen 25% since the baseline of 1999/2000 and 40% since the 2001 Summit.
• The employee major injury rate has fallen 15% since 1999/2000 and 12% since the Summit.
• The employee over-3-day accident rate has fallen 25% since 1999/2000 and 18% since the Summit.

NB: the construction industry committed itself at the 2001 Summit to (broadly) 10 times the Revitalising health and safety reduction targets set by Government/HSC for all industries. While construction has yet to achieve its own injury reduction targets it is exceeding the ‘all industry’ Revitalising targets.

4. In 2003/4 there were 70 fatal injuries to construction workers; 51 employees and 19 self-employed persons. Falls account for around half of all construction fatalities. Other main causes, in almost equal numbers, were transport, electricity and collapses.

5. Occupational Health:

• It is estimated that 2.8 million working days are lost from ill health per annum in construction.
• Problems such as vibration white finger, musculoskeletal disorders, noise induced hearing lost and asbestos related diseases are far more prevalent in construction than other industries.
• ‘Constructing Better Health’ (CBH), an initiative facilitated by HSE and launched in October 2004, is piloting an occupational health support service for the construction industry. For further information on CBH see http://www.fitbuilder.com/

6.The ‘Respect for People’ code of practice can be viewed at http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/codeofpractice/ from 12.00 noon, 24 February 2005.

7. HSE’s Chief Inspector of Construction Kevin Myers attended the Summit and took part in the Question and Answer session. Also speaking at the Summit were:

Peter Rogers, Client and Chair of the Strategic Forum for Construction;
Keith Clarke, Construction Industry Council and Chair of Safety in Design;
Peter Lobban, Chief Executive of CITB-Construction Skills;
Trevor Hursthouse, Specialist Engineering Contractor Group;
Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, for the TUC;
John Spanswick, Construction Confederation, Chair of the MCG Health and Safety Working Group;
Michael Ankers, Chief Executive of the Construction Products Association; and
George Brumwell, Chair of Constructing Better Health Board and Chairman of the Construction Skills Certification Scheme Board.

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