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Health and Safety Bulletin - Enforcement NewsHSE get tough on Construction / Refurbishment £48,200 Bill for Mitchells and Butlers Company fined for failing to comply with an Improvement Notice
HSE get tough on Construction / Refurbishment The Head of construction for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Stephen Williams has pledged ‘to take all action necessary to protect construction and refurbishment site workers, including closing sites and prosecution’. The statement follows the release of inspection statistics where 1,500 sites were visited within a two month period. The HSE prohibited work in 244 cases and took 182 prosecutions. Last year, 39 people died working on refurbishment, repair and maintenance sites in the UK and the HSE estimate that lives are at risk on 1 in 3 construction refurbishment sites. HSE's Chief Inspector of construction Stephen Williams said he was, “disappointed and sad” after such good progress in recent years, and blamed much of the rise on the growth in small building firms with a transient workforce, and the growing use of workers who are not fully trained and competent in health and safety practices.
£48,200 Bill for Mitchells and Butlers Mitchells and Butlers, pub chain have been prosecuted twice by the London Borough of Bexley. The first prosecution related to an accident at Red Barn pub where a mans walking stick went down a hole in the pub car park causing the man to fall and hit his head on a car. The man was knocked unconscious. The pub chain pleaded guilty and was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay the Council’s costs of £1,200. The second incident involved an accident to a 17 year old part time worker at the Jacobean Barn Public House. The boy slipped whilst carrying a 15litre pan of boiling water, a common practice at the pub. The employee suffered burns to his face and body. Mitchells and Butlers was fined £20,000 for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974 and £5,000 under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The council was awarded costs of £2,000.
Company fined for failing to comply with an Improvement Notice Presswarm Double Glazing, of Cheshunt, have been convicted before Hertford Magistrates, for failure to comply with an Improvement Notice that required electrical maintenance work and testing of its electrical system and equipment. The court heard that the firm had still not complied with a Notice served six months earlier. In its defence, the firm said that obtaining contractors to do the work was a complicated and drawn-out process, and the Managing Director had been absent from the business for a while after the Notice was received. The court decided that these were not valid defences of non-compliance of Improvement Notices, since they are only served in more serious cases to achieve a safer working environment, and that, “failure to comply puts workers and others at risk”. Presswarm pleaded guilty to the charge, and was fined £9,000 and ordered to pay costs of £841.
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