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HSE Tighten the Thumbscrews

The government has now announced its new ten-year plan to cut injuries and deaths in the workplace. John Prescott has stated that employers had to give health & safety a higher priority. The government wants the number of serious injuries and deaths reduced by 10 percent and the number of working days lost due to accidents cut by around a third to 7.5m per year by 2010.

These plans should be seen against a background of the construction industry, which is worth some £65bn. The ‘cost’ of health and safety to the industry is currently running at around 8% or £5bn. It is easy to see that even a 10 percent drop produces significant savings to the industry let alone the hardship to the people and families concerned.

As reported in the Financial Times 8 Jun 00 by Robert Taylor, John Prescott outlined 44 proposals designed to make health & safety at work 'a core requirement of business activity'. These include;

• Requiring companies to appoint a health & safety director responsible for health and safety and for introducing a code of practice for directors.
• Tougher penalties for lawbreakers, including prison sentences for most offences and a rise in the maximum fines in lower courts from £5000 to £20,000.
• Innovative penalties against companies are to be considered, including linking the size of fines to company turnover, prohibition of bonuses and suspension of managers without pay.
• A new grant scheme to help small companies invest in better health & safety management.
• Removal of crown immunity from statutory health & safety enforcement.
• More resources for training union safety representatives to help cut injuries by half.

Management Information Systems for CDM

During a recent review of our software by HSE, we noted a comment that the HSE are looking for designers in particular to install management information systems 'like the CDM ToolKit' to manage all aspects of their health & safety activities. The HSE saw our ability to provide an on-line audit facility as being particularly relevant. The use of this to enhance the traceability and accountability of their users was seen very positively as a 'must have' feature.

Request For Information

We are currently redeveloping our web presence and have a number of new innovative ideas in progress to enhance our 'one-stop-CDM-Shop' approach. If you would like to take part in this development with your own ideas and to help us test them out, we would like to hear from you. We are particularly keen to hear from Planning Supervisors who are prepared to act as Service Providers. Please help us to keep in front with our CDM solutions and continue to support us as you always have.