Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

Introduction to Health and Safety at Work
40
For even small projects clients should ensure that con-
tractors provide:
(a) information regarding the contractor’s Health & 
Safety policy
(b) the contractor’s health and safety organization 
detailing the responsibilities of individuals
(c) information on the contractor’s procedures and 
standards of safe working
(d) the method statements for the project in hand
(e) details on how the contractor will audit and imple-
ment their health and safety procedures.
Smaller contractors may need some guidance to help 
them produce suitable method statements. While they 
do not need to be lengthy they should set out those 
features essential to safe working, e.g. access arrange-
ments, personal protective equipment, control of chem-
ical risks, etc.
Copies of relevant risk assessments for the work to 
be undertaken should be requested. These need not be 
very detailed but should indicate the risk and the control 
methods to be used.
The Client, Designer, CDM Coordinator, Principal 
Contractor and other Contractors all have specifi c roles 
under CDM 2007 Regulations. For more information 
see Chapter 16 on Construction and Chapter 17 on the 
Summary of Legislation.
3.10.4 Contractor 
selection
The selection of the right contractor for a particular job 
is probably the most important element in ensuring that 
the risks to the health and safety of everybody involved 
on the activity and people in the vicinity are reduced as 
far as possible. Ideally, selection should be made from 
a list of approved contractors who have demonstrated 
that they are able to meet the client’s requirements.
The selection of a contractor has to be a balanced 
judgement with a number of factors taken into account. 
Fortunately, a contractor who works well and meets 
the client’s requirements in terms of the quality and 
timeliness of the work is likely also to have a better 
than average health and safety performance. Cost, of 
course, will have to be part of the judgement but may 
not provide any indication of which contractor is likely to 
give the best performance in health and safety terms. In 
deciding which contractor should be chosen for a task, 
the following should be considered:
➤
Do they have an adequate health and safety policy?
➤
Can they demonstrate that the person responsible 
for the work is competent?
➤
Can they demonstrate that competent safety advice 
will be available?
➤
Do they monitor the level of accidents at their 
work site?
➤
Do they have a system to assess the hazards of a 
job and implement appropriate control measures?
➤
Will they produce a method statement, which sets 
out how they will deal with all signifi cant risks?
➤
Do they have guidance on health and safety 
arrangements and procedures to be followed?
➤
Do they have effective monitoring arrangements?
➤
Do they use trained and skilled staff who are quali-
fi ed where appropriate? (Judgement will be required, 
as many construction workers have had little or no 
training except training on the job.) Can the com-
pany demonstrate that the employees or other 
workers used for the job have had the appropriate 
training and are properly experienced and, where 
appropriate, qualifi ed?
➤
Can they produce good references indicating satis-
factory performance?