SHUTTERSTOCK/GREGGIE LAVOIE
[ Focus: Safe systems of work ]
THE RIGHT METHOD
Producing a health and safety method statement shouldn’t be an exercise in filling up folders, it should focus on delivering a practical – and communicable – safe system of work. PAUL REEVE explains
T
he health and safety ‘method statement’ is a hardy perennial of construction health and safety. Yet, despite this, free, authoritative guidance on what a ‘widely acceptable’ method statement should
look like can be hard to find. Smaller contractors, in particular, regularly ask the ECA for guidance on compiling method statements: as well as saving companies time and money, a concise guide would help to deliver improved health and safety performance on site. Essentially, a method statement is industry
parlance for a ‘safe system of work’ (SSoW). This, as the name suggests, is the way a given task or job will be done to ensure the health and safety of those involved – and those around them
56 ECA Today December 2013
(noting that some may also include material loss prevention.) While some companies have already developed
effective method statements – either for their own or for wider commercial use – too often, the documents let loose into the supply chain are grossly excessive, unclear, do not highlight key risks, or are aimed at the wrong audience. The latter is an everyday problem – many
contractors feel compelled to produce lengthy documents to impress desk-based procurement administrators, as part of ‘pre-qualification’ for tendering. These ‘method statements on steroids’ provide many pages of content, often with no clear purpose, to people who do not even manage health and safety. On the other hand, some contractors, unsure
About the author
Paul Reeve CFIOSH is director of Business Services at the ECA
about how to describe a SSoW, appear to opt for lots of content instead – perhaps on the basis that ‘if you look, you will find a safe method in there somewhere!’ Yet, the main audience for the health and safety
method statement should be the on site supervisor and operative. These workers need a concise and easily communicable safe system of work, based on a good quality ‘activity based’ risk assessment.
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