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Select Committee transcript indicates issues to be explored

The Chair of the Inquiry into the Underlying Causes of Construction Fatalities gave evidence recently to the DWP Select Committee and the transcript has now been published providing a useful guide to the issues to be considered by the Inquiry:

• Aim: ensure the best are doing their best, the middle range who want to do better are assisted by open access to information & support and that those who do not care have sufficient sanctions against them;
• Causes: gaps between intention and reality will be identified to assess if the problem “is the lack of regulation or the non-implementation of existing regulation”
• Statistics: reliability of statistics is an area that will be looked at by the academics;
• Information accessibility: ensuring that the H&S information available to employers is easily readable to the layperson and not wrapped in complex language;
• HSE: the purpose of examining fatality investigation reports will be to identify gaps in the behaviour of the dutyholders involved rather than how effectively HSE carried out the investigation and;
• Enforcement: consideration of whether existing regulations are sufficient, if they are promulgated enough by prosecution or if they are ignored in a widespread way by the industry.

This article was posted on 3rd February 2009 in ALL LATEST NEWS, FATALITIES.
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