Health and safety inspector
Buildings can present a great number of risks to health and safety, both in construction and operation. There are many duties placed on those commissioning, designing, constructing, operating and demolishing buildings to control those risks.
The legislation affecting health and safety in the construction industry falls under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act through regulations such as the Control of Asbestos Regulations, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) and in particular the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, first introduced in 1994. (See Health and Safety and CDM for more information).
Health and safety in construction is usually enforced by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors, although lower risk works such as small-scale fit out works may be the responsibility of inspectors from the local authority.
HSE's Construction Division is part of the Field Operations Directorate (FOD) based in Bootle, Merseyside and includes operational units with more than a hundred inspectors across the country. s health and safety in the workplace are reduced, by providing advice and guidance on how to comply with the law, ensuring compliance, inspecting workplaces, investigating incidents, accidents and complaints and taking enforcement action.
Inspectors have the power to:
- Visit sites without notice.
- Enter premises.
- Talk to employees.
- Require co-operation and answers to questions.
- Take written statements.
- Issue notices requiring that improvements are made.
- Stop processes where there is a risk of serious injury.
- Prosecute a business or an individual for breaking health and safety law.
- Offer guidance, education and support.
The subjects of the inspection can require proof of identity from inspectors, and may ask for written instructions and explanations. Businesses receiving improvement or prohibition notices have the right to appeal to an industrial tribunal, although the action required by a prohibition notice is not suspended pending the appeal.
Records must be kept of any reportable injury, disease or dangerous occurrence.
HSE must be notified in writing before construction starts if the work is expected to either:
- last longer than 30 days; or
- involve more than 500 person days of construction work.
In April 2013, HSE reported that one in four of the construction sites visited in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk during a month-long inspection initiative failed health and safety checks.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- Asbestos.
- Building regulations inspection.
- CDM Regulations.
- Clerk of works.
- Commercial manager.
- Construction site inspection.
- COSHH.
- Deleterious materials.
- Demolition.
- Fee for intervention.
- First aider.
- Health and safety.
- Human resource management in construction.
- Injuries on construction sites.
- Inspections focus on occupational lung disease.
- Manual handling assessment chart.
- Notify HSE.
- Safety audit.
- Safety management.
- Site induction.
- Site supervisor.
- Social distancing compliance marshal.
[edit] External references
- HSE, Field Operations Directorate (FOD)
- HSE Health and Safety in Construction.
Featured articles and news
Introducing or next Guest Editor Arun Baybars
Practising architect and design panel review member.
Types of rapidly renewable content
From forestry to agricultural crops and their by-products.
Terraced houses and the public realm
The discernible difference between the public realm of detached housing and of terraced housing.
Put digitalisation and sustainability at the core of curricula
Project management educators are urged.
Looking back at the influence of climate events
From a designer and writer: 'There are limits to growth but no limits to development'.
Terms, histories, theories and practice.
Biophilic design and natural light
Letting in the light and natural elements into spaces.
APM Programme Management Conference 2024
Strategies for Success.
Residential takes the reins as contract awards even out
Contracts down, but remain above the last quarter of 2023.
Celebrating Eid and the largest mud-brick building.
Barry Kingscote claims prestigious CIOB CMYA Award.
The British Mosque: an architectural and social history
The story of some 1,500 mosques or more in Britain.
Heat pump refrigerants, efficiencies and impacts
R12 to R1270 what are the differences?
Global heat pump market in 2023
Challenging times with positive but modest outlook.
Beyond the infrastructure pipeline
Opportunities and chokepoints.