Construction deaths leap up

News | HSW
15.09.2007

Secretary for work and pensions Peter Hain is to convene a forum of construction employers and trade unions to find ways to curb rising fatality rates, after the HSE's latest figures revealed a jump of more than 25% in building deaths.

The forum, which will meet in September, will focus on firms in the housebuilding and repair and refurbishment sectors (which have shown the greatest increase in fatalities).

The HSE's provisional fatality figures, published at the end of July, show deaths in construction rose by more than 25% in the 12 months to April 2007. The 77 people who died on building sites last year (up from a record low level of 60 in 2005-06) represented a rate of 3.7 fatalities per 100,000 workers (up from 3.0).

The deaths included 23 falls from height, 16 workers who were hit by moving or falling objects and 10 electrocutions.

Health and safety commissioner John Spanswick, who also chairs the Major Contractors Group of the largest construction firms, called the figures "distressing and unacceptable" and said the overall flat trend in fatalities in the past five years suggested the sector's employers needed to work hard to change the culture.

Spanswick linked the figures to the current boom in UK construction activity, which he said had stretched resources. "I'd suggest that, because of that, people have appeared in supervisory positions with a lack of training and experience," he said.

The HSE's provisional figures show the total deaths in all industries rose too last year, from 217 to 241. The annual average for the past five years was 231 fatalities and HSE statisticians say the falling trend of the 1990s has flattened out in recent years.

Apart from construction, the sector with the highest fatalities was agriculture, where there were 34 deaths in 2006-07, the same as the previous year, a rate of 8.1 per 100,000 workers. The HSE has highlighted the waste and recycling industry and refuse disposal services as accident "hotspots" and the fatality statistics confirm this, with death rates of 15.1 and 8.1 per 100,000 respectively.

The accident types that contributed most to the rise in deaths last year were objects or vehicles overturning and collapsing, moving vehicles or objects striking people, and drowning and asphyxiation.

HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger admitted at the launch that there had been a 2.6% reduction in the number of field inspectors last year, but noted that enforcement activity had risen. "You can't relate the number of fatalities to the number of inspectors," argued Podger.