A couple of weeks ago, Preston Crown Court heard a case against a retail business who had engaged a roofing contractor to carry out work on their premises.
As a result of falling through a skylight, an employee of the contractor suffered life-changing injuries. The contractor was prosecuted by HSE for a number of offences including failing to plan the work properly, failing to supply a means of preventing falls through the fragile roof and having given no training to its operatives.
However, HSE then prosecuted the retail business for failing to undertake due diligence checks on the roofing contractor’s documents and ensuring that a safety plan was prepared prior to work commencing. The business was fined a total of £133,000.
I have personally watched people walk over the roof of a local business with no protection whatsoever and telephoned the owner to warn him of what was going on and the consequences – only to receive a very rude telephone call from the contractor, to tell me to keep my nose out of things!
If contractors are being taken on to do work on your building, there is a legal duty on you to ensure that they have a good approach to health and safety by way of documents and training of their operatives and that the work is planned to reduce the chance of any accidents. However, it is all too easy to call in someone who you have used before and who seemed OK or someone recommended by a friend, or even to use someone cheap.
Unfortunately, complying with health and safety law does cost money and reputable contractors have to build it into their charges. On the contrary, some contractors spend nothing on accident prevention, chancing that nothing will happen and so they can keep costs down. If you employ contractors without checks, you may be lucky but if there is an accident, you are going to be paying for it.
Check that they have at least a Risk Assessment and Method Statement for the work that they are doing and that, if it carries an obvious risk, such as working at height, there are controls that reduce this hazard. Also make sure that they have competent people working on the job and that they are insured.
If you’d like to know about Risk Assessment in the Workplace click here