HSE Construction – Is Your Website Evidence for Prosecution?
HSE Construction Principal Inspector Tells All!
February – HSE Construction Review Meeting
As always the HSE Construction Review was a riveting meeting producing a few revelations and some interesting and hair raising tales of the cowboys and villains who are still a common facet of the wild wild west construction industry.
February is an important month in the diary for anyone involved in Construction safety in the south west. Why? because it’s when the annual Construction Review meeting happens. This is a meeting organised by two safety institutions The Institution of Safety and Health (IOSH) and the local smaller cousin Avon Occupational Safety & Health Group (AOSH).
The reason this meeting is one of the most well attended though, is the Speaker for the meeting: Andrew Kingscott, Principal Inspector for the HSE. Andrew tells attendees all about how the fatal incident statistics stack up for the past few years, how they are looking so far this year, and what aspects of construction are producing the biggest problems. This might be extremely important information if you are wondering where the HSE scrutiny might be over the next 12 months…
More will be revealed in the next article, but to get back to the website evidence… This was referred to a few times during Andrew’s presentation and he explained that the first thing he now does when an incident occurs, is go to the company website of those involved and “snapshot” it.
Several fascinating examples were shown of the way website owners had proudly displayed photos of their people hard at work. Unfortunately the photos also showed the most appalling safety standards – evidence of law breaking provided for all to see (and use in court!).
As an illustration of this: The photo below used to appear on the website of Cotswold Geotechnical (holdings) Ltd. who employed Alex Wright a 27 year old engineer. Alex was killed when a trial pit he had entered collapsed in on him and he was asphyxiated. Cotswold Geotech are currently in court charged with corporate manslaughter. This photo adds to the picture of a company using completely unacceptable practices, allowing entry to a trench over 12 feet deep which was not shored.
This photo appeared on the cotswold geotech website before the fatal incident in which Alex Wright died
Websites are a great business tool and can raise the profile of any business, but maybe it’s time to review at the work practices you may be advertising with the help of a health and safety professional….