Most organisations in the public or private sector regularly use contractors to help them complete a project successfully. The overall responsibilities of the client and the contractor to protect each other in health and safety fields should be at the forefront of both parties' minds, for it is vital in maintaining a good, risk-free working partnership. Both sides must cooperate to ensure that health and safety issues are properly managed – this will minimise the risk of things going wrong.
Finding a suitable contractor who meets both the requirements for your job and the necessary health and safety standards can be a long and arduous task. In many cases, at the end of the process you will discover that an applicant does not quite fit the bill.
Work undertaken by an external contractor will usually be covered by a civil contract, and incorporating health and safety requirements into such a contract is common good practice. However, difficulties can be caused by the fact that health and safety responsibilities are defined by criminal law and cannot be passed on from one party to another by a contract.
When selecting a contractor, you clearly need to identify all the aspects of work that will be involved, including tasks which fall within preparation and completion phases. The level of risk will depend on the nature of the job. Whatever the risk, the health and safety implications of the job must be considered. This involves selecting a suitable contractor, assessing the risks, deciding what information, instruction and training are required, how co-operation and co-ordination between all parties can be sustained, how the workforce should be consulted and the level of supervision necessary.
Every detail must be discussed with a prospective contractor: your own health and safety policies as well theirs, their safety method statement and details of any independent assessment of their competence. You can then decide whether you have sufficient evidence to hire their services.
Assessing the risk of the work involved can prove difficult, and all rests on the type of work to be done. Both client and contractor will already have a risk assessment for their own business, but both parties must get together to consider the risks from the other's perspective.
Cooperation, consultation and training are perhaps the most basic factors in constructing this type of partnership, and can be vital to the success of the project. Without good communication, something vital will be missed out.
In one such case, a client was prosecuted for failing to provide information to a contractor working on some tiles on the ceiling of an occupied tower block. The contractor was unaware that the tiles contained asbestos, and they were removed in an uncontrolled manner. The result was that the contractor and occupants were found to be at risk, and the client was fined £35,000 plus costs. Better communication would have prevented such a huge bill.
The employees of both client and contractor must also be kept in the loop. Arrangements must be discussed with them from the outset to prevent misunderstandings or potentially dangerous situations.
These factors, and many others relevant to a client-contractor relationship, are now made easier to consider with the introduction of the Contractors Health and Safety (CHAS) Assessment Scheme, which is a national database of contractors. It lists contractors who have demonstrated an acceptable level of health and safety compliance and management as part of the process of being placed on a public sector organisation's approved list. Internet access to the database enables exchange of information between member organisations.
CHAS has provided a standard set of health and safety criteria, so once a contractor has been accepted by one member, any other signed-up member of CHAS can accept them too – thus reducing the investigation time spent on weighing up suitability.
A group of safety and contract professionals manages the scheme on behalf of members, and has co-opted membership of the Health and Safety Executive, the Federation of Masters Builders, The National Federation of Builders and the National Care Home Association. Chaired by John Murphy, health and safety manager at the London Borough of Merton, CHAS now has 86 local authority and public sector members from throughout the UK.
As well as setting the mind of the client at rest, the scheme is proving useful to contractors as well. In the past they have seen the health and safety application as a bureaucratic nightmare, but now recognise that CHAS eliminates many frustrations. In particular it helps them improve any weak areas of H&S, so they are now able to demonstrate compliance.
John Murphy says: "The failure rate amongst SMEs at initial application was very high. Following guidance, the vast majority of them are approved at re-application. However, as many as two in ten applications remain either non-compliant or fail to respond to encouragement to improve – this is inevitably the cowboy element, and public sector procurement benefits from their absence!"
In addition to acting as a valuable time saving device for hiring reputable contractors, CHAS will enable the public sector to play a significant part in driving up safety standards. John Murphy will be addressing delegates at this year's conference of ALARM – The National Forum for Risk Management in the Public Sector – on the issues surrounding the selection and control of contractors and the benefits that CHAS can bring to public sector bodies.
Gemma Rogers wrote this in association with ALARM, E-mail: gemma@talking-heads.co.uk . Information on CHAS is at www.chas.gov.uk or contact John Murphy on 0208 5453838.
ALARM: Tel 01395 223399; www.alarm-uk.com
