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May/June 2023 issue

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Sector: Central government
Construction
News

Construction sector deal promotes offsite manufacturing for improved safety

Open-access content Friday 13th July 2018
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

deal

The agreement between the government and the construction sector focuses on innovation, arguing that digital techniques and offsite manufacture will improve the safety of buildings (see our feature Here's one I prepared earlier).

The government said the adoption of digital and manufacturing technology, such as building information modelling, would enable better designed buildings that "meet both best practice in relation to safety" and "will facilitate the incorporation of better and safer materials and building safety systems".

The deal commits the partners to £420m investment in technology and building methods that will help to deliver more affordable infrastructure at speed in response to Brexit and demographic changes.

Business secretary Greg Clark announced the deal last November following the launch of the industrial strategy and the details were released last week.

The deal aims to "boost the skills of construction workers and training the next generation of workers". The industry will also develop common training standards and programmes in key areas such as safety and health and management to improve standards in the construction sector.

Though the construction sector has improved its commitment to safety and health over the past ten years, "there is scope to go further", the government notes. It has identified three key areas for improvement, which are: standardising work-related health and safety training for employees; supporting longer-term physical and mental health; and improving working environments.

It said the Health and Safety Executive's Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) will work with the Construction Industry Training Board, the Construction Leadership Council and construction firms to help achieve high standards of safety and health across the industry, supporting the objectives of the sector deal.

The deal pledges to improve the skills of those working on the design, construction and operation of "higher risk" residential buildings, defined as high-rise tower blocks of ten or more storeys in Dame Judith Hackitt's final report of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, Building a Better Future.

The government has called on the industry to "take forward key recommendations" from this report, which includes more than 50 proposals for a more robust regulatory system to improve safety in tower blocks.

For example, the Steering Group on Competencies for Building a Safer Future -- a subgroup of the Industry Response Group that was set up last July in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire -- will develop a proposal for an overarching body that, as recommended in Hackitt's final report, would support the provision of competent people working on high-rise residential buildings, and assure their skills, knowledge and experience.

You may also be interested in...

 HSE business plan targets mental health, ISO 45001 and major hazard industries

Tuesday 3rd July 2018
The plan, which maps out action over the next 12 months, identifies four priority areas.Under leading and engaging with others to improve OSH, the HSE plans to deliver the next phase of the Health and Work programme, with a focus on work-related stress, reducing levels of occupational lung disease and musculoskeletal disorders.In Q4, the HSE says it will publish revised guidance for employers on how to assess and manage work-related mental ill health, which includes links to the new mental healthcare standards.
Open-access content
Image credit: ©iStock/vitranc

 Construction inspections find rise in unsafe work at height

Friday 13th July 2018
The figures are based on around 10,000 building site inspections carried out by the construction safety body between January and June this year.They show there were 1,064 work at height and edge protection failings in the first three months of 2018, compared with 1,200 in the second quarter. The total number of failings logged for the whole of 2017 was 4,511, down from 4,568 recorded in 2016.
Open-access content
©iStock/sturti

 Bodycams for paramedics to bring more attackers to justice

Friday 6th July 2018
The UK’s health secretary Jeremy Hunt said 465 ambulances and their paramedics will be equipped with the cameras as part of a pilot scheme, with the potential for a full roll out to all ambulance staff. More than 15% of National Health Service (NHS) workers said they had been physically attacked by their patients or patients’ families over the past year. Figures show that 354 people have been prosecuted for assaulting paramedics but estimates suggest the total number of incidents is much higher.
Open-access content
Image credit: ©iStock/sajithsaam

 Met Police accused of blocking construction union’s ‘quest for truth’ over blacklisting

Thursday 5th July 2018
The GMB union said it filed an FOI on 9 April after the Met admitted that officers from its special branch units secretly infiltrated trade unions and passed on information to blacklisting organisation the Consulting Association. The request required the force’s full internal investigation report and all emails relating to it, as well as details of overt and covert meetings between officers and members of blacklisting organisations, the union said.
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 Director jailed after unplanned building collapse during demolition

Tuesday 24th July 2018
Manchester Crown Court was told that Riaz Ahmad had hired a group of workers, who had no experience in construction, to demolish a property in Oldham. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector visited the site on 11 August 2017 after it received a phone call from Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council’s building control department. The inspector found almost all the internal walls and roof supports had been removed and served a prohibition notice on Ahmad preventing any further work and closed a major road that ran past the building.
Open-access content
Power cables were trailing through puddles

 Housebuilder refused to heed HSE’s CDM warnings

Thursday 26th July 2018
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited a site in Preston, Lancashire, in June 2015, where the client, Sherwood Homes, had appointed a principal contractor (PC) to plan, manage and carry out the conversion of a farmhouse and barns into several homes. The inspection found a range of issues, including one labourer working on a poorly erected tower scaffold with no handrail, and another using an angle grinder on the stonework without dust suppression, local exhaust ventilation, or respiratory protective equipment.
Open-access content
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Sector: Central government
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