Do they REALLY mean it?
As of next week I have to start conducting site inductions. So I’ve started getting my head into McAlpine’s Health and Safety policy.
Obviously they induct everyone on their first day, insist on CSCS cards and SMSTS trained supervisors. That’s the norm. But McAlpine are attempting to go further…
McAlpine have the” Work Safe, Home Safe” tag line, and claim to be attempting to change the culture of construction by pushing Health and Safety to the fore. They conduct workforce engagement session each week and everyone who works on site must attend one within two weeks of starting.
But do they follow it through? Do they really mean it?
How much does all this cost? There’s the cost of the materials, facilities and training courses. And there’s the lost hours which impacts on the program. And program = money. Particularly when the subcontractor is currently 3 weeks behind. McAlpine must think it’s worth it in the long run. So where are they making that money back?
A couple of weeks ago I posted this photo and learnt the lesson of “It’s all about money”.
That happened because a tipper was driving onto a pile of spoil to dump more material onto in. The pile hadn’t been compacted and there were no stop blocks or banksmen to stop him. He drove onto a loose area, it gave way, dumper at funky angle. But prior to the last trip, he must have driven onto the pile 5 or 6 times.
In my mind each of those trips was a near miss. It was an unsafe practice that could have resulted in injury – proved by the later incident. So what did McAlpine do? Did they report the incident internally as an accident? Did they scorn the sub-contractor? No. They recorded the incident as a near miss and cracked on.
Prior to any work being conducted on site risk assessments and method statements must be completed by the sub-contractor. John and Harry would hate them. They’re full of stuff about slips, trips and falls and make no consideration to how the tasks relate to each other. They don’t require a real consideration to the risks involved or what the safest way to conduct that activity is. There is one method statement for steel fixing and another for drainage. Nothing on how they interact though. Which led to this:
![WP_20150327_08_29_51_Pro[1]](https://pewpetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/wp_20150327_08_29_51_pro1.jpg)
In case you’re wondering a large non-return valve should fit on that pipe. A lot of rebar had to be cut to get it in. And for each bit of rebar they cut, they have to put an additional area of steel back in, including a full anchor length. So they’re really not helping themselves.
![WP_20150327_12_43_39_Pro[1]](https://pewpetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/wp_20150327_12_43_39_pro1.jpg)
So I ask again: Do they REALLY mean it?
I sense a TMR coming on…
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Guz – like the topic. Laing O’Rourke have a similar corporate mind-set of going further than required. At present we lack the resources to do this but the aim is there. Having said that, despite briefings and paperwork there are still issues such as blokes not wearing ear defence or not having available appropriate fire extinguishers for hot works.
The relationship from method statement to execution is an interesting one. I expect your perspective from a principal contractor is that different work packages, such as reinforcement and drainage, should be joined up but I suspect these packages may belong to different sub-contractors? Therefore a generic steel fixing method statement might not cover apertures for drainage? In my capping beam there are all sorts of complications (steel for Ground Force props, king posts to act as a retaining cantilever and drainage holes), therefore a 3D model was created – Is BIM/digital engineering being used on your project for this sort of thing, or only where somebody happens to foresee an issue? In my head, the only real way of solving these issues is by thinking that there might be a problem in the first place. This relies on good people having time/experience/competency to focus on all of the elements of a particular part of the build – which is not always the case at the pre-build stage or indeed not if they are not paid to consider the package as a whole…
The steel fixing and the drainage are indeed conducted by two different contractors, but they’re both employed by P C Harrington, so from a McAlpine point of view they’re the same.
We’re not employing BIM, or at least I’ve not seen any. I think that the solution to the rebar verses drainage problem is for the PM at PCH to consider his program and his differing disciplines in advance. To plan. Something they currently aren’t doing, which is making life very difficult for their tradesmen onsite.
So I agree with the “good people” comment. I think in this case it’s foresight that makes a person good, and we’re not seeing a whole load of it.
The group that visited Battersea with Ange the other day also came to my site prior to heading into London. I conducted the site induction and found that a good chuck of the information in the pack was out of date, names of first aiders, etc or was so generic that it was embarrassing having to brief it. Bams strap line is Beyond Zero has has a similar aim to the ones you have mentioned and talks about zero injury and not just preventing health issues for the future but improving employees health in the short and long term.
To get on our crane jetty you have to wear a harness and be clipped on or wear a life jacket depending on the tide, however, the jetty is fitted with kick boards and a hand rail and has a further dedicated walk platform with another hand rail. In contrast the import of chalk that I have mentioned previously now sits around 2m higher than the original level with a 60degree batter. The other day I watched the roller compact right up to the edging saw the ground move and the batter bulged. The foreman stopped it straight away however later that day they were back on it with the rule that the rollers will only approach the batter square on so that the load is spread better and the back wheels will have more traction incase of a slip. Has this dealt with the issue…in my opinion not in the slightest but the issue was reopened on friday and will be reviewed prior to work tomorrow but no near miss was raised!
The Activity Plans (risk assessment/methodologies) that we produce are very generic. The first page of each one is the same and comprises of slip, trips and fall, working at height, etc regardless of what the job it. The whole H&S approach is very confusing, the ivory tower sends great policy with gold plated objectives however life at the front can be rush and does what it can to appease everyone whilst getting the job done which leads to breaches in best practice…now why does that sound familiar?!
Old military maxim: “You may delegate a task but you can’t delegate responsibility”, the meaning being that a delegated task might make someone responsible to you for delivering it but you remain responsible in the eyes of those that passed it to you. This is clearly the case in Guz description of Harringtons being the responsible party for delivering co-ordinated steel a fixing and drainage. but taken one layer upwards, the main contractor is responsible for the delivery ovrall and so I look to the second old maxim: “If it’s not checked, it’s not done”. This deals with human nature and makes it clear that if you’re responsible for a task and delegate it you must check that it is completed or you cannot be confident that you have discharged your responsibility to deliver it. So what process does a main contractor use to check that the subcontractors are delivering the tasks ‘delegated’ to them? I thin the ‘good people’ remark is fair but would add some detail – a good project manager with sufficient tehical knowledge to understand what is being done, identify the risks and then mange them. The fact that there is a technical knowledge requirement means that this cannot be a generic project manger ignorant of the processess but must first and foremeost be someone conversant in the requirements associated with materials, plant and processess associated with delivering the design intent i.e. an engineer. Hands up all of the project and site engineers working for the main contractor charged with delivering the works. Hands up all of those who are responsible for ensuring that the tasks delegated to subcontractors are correctly co-ordinated, or, if they’ve been delegated the task of co-ordinating them too, are, at the very least, responsible for checkingbthat this is being done. Hands up all of those that might want to reject a method statement or two and summon sub contrators to a co-ordination meeting based on the evidence presented. You may delegate a task but you can’t delegate responsibility… I feel that too often I have been embarased to find myself observing something that I felt should have been better delivered only to later reflect that perhaps I should have been the driving force and forsight behined ensuring that it was… Mea Culpa, but I don’t think I’m alone.
I agree. And it’s a tough one, because I’m told I can’t really intervene with the sub-contractor’s process. All I can do is check a product. How they choose to deliver it, provided it is done on time and to the required quality, is up to them. It’s like mission command to put it into a military parlance. I can tell them what to achieve, but not how to achieve it. I can suggest things that might be help, but at the end of the day it’s up to them. So how do you enforce it?
Sorry to have left it so long – forgot to tick notify of reply so didn’t notice this ’til now! The Right to interferre existis under H&S. You cannot prescribe the method used to deliver the requirment but you do insisit that it is done safely. The sub contractor must inform you of their proposed method, and demonstrate that they have considered the risks, removed, reduced and/or mitigated them so that you can accept their proposal. no sign off on the method statement no commence works on site. Failure to do this = breach of contract = not paid for works or commercial team notification and an avalanche of paperwork and difficlty ever getting work again.
Guz, what does the contract documentation cover with the sub-contractors? In JHG all the method statements and H&S documentation was reviewed prior to them winning the contract. If time was short then words were added to note that the sub-contractor had to be at, or above, the standard set by JHG. This may not help with the poor planning, but it should give some contract basis to force the subbie to improve their documentation (particularly the slips, trips and falls bits of their SWMS (or equivalent)).
Has there been any timescale set for review of method statements and safety documentation? There were weekly site walk rounds by a mixed group to look for ways to improve the standards on our site. The aim was to have someone from the workforce, a safety rep, an engineer and a supervisor in each group. They then targeted a specific area (piling/substructure/concrete pours/etc) and checked whether what was happening was in any way related to the documentation in place (both safety and the method statement, though the main emphasis was on safety). As methods improved as the job went on it was a constant battle for me and my site engineers to keep everything relevant and up to date. Supervisors often changed the method and the message was slow to get passed. This was the best way to ensure that documents never got too far out of date. The JHG process for managing the task safety at the supervisor level, allows them to modify the documentation if they believe it not to be safe (which I agree with). But too often this change was never passed on, to be taken account of in the higher level documents or for engineers to consider second order effects. It would be interesting to know what the contract covers.