Weighing up the law
Laura White ponders whether change is afoot for the
height remain one of the main causes of fatal accidents at work. The Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to all work where there might be a risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury, and introduced a hierarchy of measures to be considered during the work at height process, with the aim of encouraging avoidance of work at height, where possible. Where it cannot be avoided, the best
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practicable means of ensuring the safety of those working at height must be used. Since the introduction of these regulations, the UK has consistently had some of the lowest workplace fatality and serious injury rates in the European Union. Despite this, falls from height remain the single biggest cause of workplace fatalities. Earlier this year, the All Party Parliamentary
Group (APPG), formed in October 2017 in a bid to ‘understand the root causes and propose effective, sensible measures to reduce this toll’, published its report, Staying Alive: preventing serious injury and fatalities while working at height. The report points to the inconsistency of
safety regulation across the United Kingdom, and highlights that there are ‘a number of complex and multi-faceted reasons based on culture, behaviour and competence’ for falls from height. It calls on the government and industry to act to bring about a systematic and cultural change in attitudes to work at height, including an investigation into the suitability of legally binding financial penalties in health and safety akin to civil sanctions that are available in certain environmental cases.
20 JUNE 2019
www.frmjournal.com
ESPITE AN overhaul of the Health and Safety Executive’s work at height guidance in 2014, falls from
Work at Height Regulations 2005 Five key recommendations are made by
the APPG, as follows: • the introduction of enhanced reporting through the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR), which at a minimum record the scale of the fall, the method used and circumstances of it
•
reporting of near misses and accidents that do not qualify for RIDDOR reporting to give a better understanding of accidents and their circumstances
• improved training and education, particularly for industries outside of the construction sector
• an equivalent system to Scotland’s Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) process to be extended to the rest of the UK – in Scotland, an FAI is carried out when a death results from an accident at work, and its aim is to uncover the facts to prevent future deaths or injuries, rather than to apportion blame
• the creation of a digital technology strategy to encourage investment in new technology, particularly for small, micro and sole traders – the use of new technologies and innovations such as augmented reality and the effective use of drones is now a reality, but is out of reach for some smaller organisations, and a new tax relief (for example) would go some way to enabling them to invest in such technology
Under the current regime, those convicted of health and safety failings can expect increasingly hefty fines and, for individuals, an enhanced risk of a custodial sentence.
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