10 years of safer quarries celebrated at major industry event

Date:

21 June 2010

10 years of success in reducing death and injury in Great Britain's quarries will be marked in a special address at the Hillhead 2010 quarry exhibition this week - one of the biggest events in the quarrying calendar.

Reportable injuries in the sector are down 76 per cent since the 'Hard Target' initiative was launched in 2000 and Judith Hackitt, Chair of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), will be commending the companies, trade bodies and trade unions for their efforts.

Judith will also use her speech on the opening morning (Tuesday 22 June) to rally the industry in making a renewed commitment to 'Target Zero', with the aim of bringing down reportable injuries by a further 15 per cent year on year by 2015.

Health and safety improvements in the industry continue to be driven forward through specific working groups looking at areas such as education and training, occupational health, use of contractors and working with explosives.

Said Judith Hackitt:

"The quarrying industry has demonstrated what can be achieved when an industry sector commits to improvement in health and safety.

However, there is no room for complacency. As the number of incidents decrease, it will get ever more challenging for the industry to make further gains. Reaching the new goals will require even more hard work, determination and the development of new approaches.

"The improvements made so far are down to strong leadership, with employers promoting a safety culture right across their organisations, bolstered by the efforts of the unions and trade associations.

"It's also about creating an environment that encourages sharing and learning. This can be best demonstrated through the example of an explosives engineer who has been sharing his expertise on safe drilling and blasting and safety reps who have devised worker involvement courses in their own time.

Added Martin Isles, Deputy President for the Institute of Quarrying:

"The industry has made massive strides in health and safety over the last ten years in particular.  But to achieve its ultimate goal of zero harm, a stronger focus is needed on the more challenging issues and to convince all stakeholders that the supply chain has a vital role to play."

Said Allan Black, GMB National Officer:

"GMB strongly supports the work of everyone involved in the Target Zero campaign. The superb results achieved to date are testimony to the value of involving workers to develop joint solutions to the key issues that the quarrying industry faces.

We look forward to embedding this good practice across the sector, and driving further improvements in the future."

Notes to editors

1. Launched in 2005, Target Zero is an initiative of the Quarries National Joint Advisory Committee (QNJAC) which seeks to achieve continual improvement in the health and safety performance of the quarry industry.
2. Industry set itself a target of a 50% reduction in reportable incidents by 2010 compared to a 2004/5 baseline with an ultimate goal of zero reportable incidents. These aims follow on from the 52% reduction that was achieved over the period 2004/05 during the Hard Target phase of the injury-reduction initiative which ran in the five year period up to 2004/05.
3. For more information visit www.hse.gov.uk/quarries
4. RIDDOR reportable injuries 2001-2009
   
   

   Year	Target	Actual
   Baseline	655
   2001	590	542
   2002	524	482
   2003	459	410
   2004	393	337
   Baseline		317
   2006	285	331
   2007	253	297
   2008	221	259
   2009	189	155
   2010	157

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