星空传媒

February 2001 was make or break time for construction. The deputy prime minister, John Prescott, ordered the industry to clean up its safety act or face legislation. The Major Contractors Group (MCG) in particular was under pressure to lead the industry into a safer future. And so the chief executives of the 21 MCG companies hammered out a safety charter, promising a brave new world of a fully qualified workforce, a dramatic reduction in accidents and consultation with the workers.

One of its headline targets was to reduce accidents 10% year on year until 2010. Judging by this target, the charter is a woeful failure, as the incidence rate for reportable injuries went up 11% this year (April 2001 to March 2002) on MCG sites, compared with a drop of 19% the year before (April 2000 to March 2001, largely before the charter came into effect). To stay on course to reach its target, the MCG will now have to reduce accidents by 12% next year.

Figures and failure
So is the charter a failure? Not surprisingly, Bill Tallis, director of the MCG, says no. He puts the rise in accident figures down to an increase in reporting and a better, not worse, safety culture. "We now have very rigorous and full reporting in place, which wasn't happening before," he says. "For example, if someone working for a subcontractor suffered a minor injury, they may simply be replaced with someone else the day after and there is no way the main contractor would know about it. That isn't happening as much now. I'm very confident we'll reach our final target."

Peter Booth, safety manager for Benchmark Scaffolding, agrees the rise is due to better reporting. "I'm encouraging our staff to report accidents more. They are beginning to realise that they have nothing to fear from the Health & Safety Executive in reporting an accident."

More noise than action
Safety is certainly higher up the agenda on site. MCG companies are making a lot more noise to subbies about inductions and safety paperwork. But it's not having an effect. This raises serious questions, such as exactly how seriously did the MCG take its promises of nearly two years ago? And how able is it to effect change?

John Bradshaw, the MCG's health and safety manager, says it has been working hard to improve safety on site, enforcing safety inductions, consulting with workers and hosting workshops. But he admits that pushing the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) has overshadowed other commitments. "It was always going to be the most difficult part of the charter to implement. We diverted a lot of energy to it, but a lack of skilled workers is also a cause of accidents, so it feeds into health and safety too."

Tallis admits to a failure to influence subcontractors. "We haven't worked hard enough to get the message to all the supply chain. Subcontractors didn't think we were serious. The personal touch has been missing and we were slow off the mark to realise that."

So it's more seminars, this time in the regions, where directors of MCG companies discuss the safety charter with their supply chain. They've held seven of these so far, with 13 still to come. The MCG measures the success of these seminars by counting how many CSCS cards emerge as a result. Last month it also formed a working group to encourage behavioural safety.

Leaving aside the question of whether this talk-heavy agenda constitutes a serious effort, perhaps the real question is: Can the MCG exert any real control over the accident rate on its sites? The first step would be to understand the causes of the problem, but even this escapes the MCG.

Bradshaw admits he doesn't know root causes of accidents, beyond, say, falls from height. "We don't look at a detailed analysis of why accidents happen as a group. Individual companies do it, but they don't feed back to us."

you don鈥檛 need integrated teams to have a safe site

Bill Tallis, Major Contractors Group

But if you don't understand the problem, how can you solve it? For instance, anecdotal evidence suggests that lowest price tendering is inherently unsafe. Clients pressure main contractors, who then squeeze their subbies so everyone can make a profit, but safety suffers in the process.

Bill Taylor, managing director of East Midlands Plastering, says pressure from clients is a factor. "It's tight programming and it's getting worse and worse. Everyone wants to cut down the programme, and this is client-led. They try to save money by saving time."

Clients are to blame
The HSE agrees. In Revitalising Health and Safety in Construction released last month, it savages the role of clients and urges them to take responsibility for safety.

Where clients are willing to pay for safety, the benefits are obvious. On four Mace projects at Heathrow there have been no reportable accidents. Nigel Cole, Mace's operations director at Heathrow and a gold medallist in the 星空传媒 Manager of the Year Awards in 2001, puts it down to the safety culture that runs through BAA and the framework agreements it has set up with its contractors, guaranteeing repeat business, the chance to do detailed planning, and client-contractor familiarity.

BAA has long been held up as a safe client, with initiatives such as its one in a million campaign, which achieved one or fewer reportable accidents for every million man-hours in 2001. But is its enviable record due to framework agreements?

Andrew Spencer is a cost and benchmarking manager for Boots Properties, which has had framework agreements in place for a year. He says improving safety was fundamental to their introduction. He says it is too early for hard evidence of whether framework agreements reduce accidents, but he believes they do. "Competitive tender means contractors tend to go in low and try and recoup money on site, which affects safety. With framework agreements, everyone is working together and sharing the benefits, and safety has more prominence."

Zara Lamont, chief executive of the Confederation of Construction Clients, agrees. "We are absolutely convinced that the way to tackle all the industry's ills, including safety, is through integrated teams, whether through framework agreements or for one-off clients. Everything suffers with lowest price tendering and we are committed to eradicating it."

Let's do it my way
Tallis disagrees. "I don't think there is a direct correlation between framework agreements and safety. It's helpful but you don't need integrated teams to have a safe site. You need the right behaviours and everybody working together, not leaving safety to someone else."