Two men have been jailed for a total of 18 months for taking health and safety tests on behalf of other construction workers to gain skills cards.

The case is being highlighted by CITB-ConstructionSkills who warned any other fraudsters could expect to feel the full force of the law.

Gurpreet Singh and Parampreet Singh were both convicted last week after pleading guilty at Luton Crown Court.

They had been caught by staff at CITB-ConstructionSkills’ test centre in Luton, Bedfordshire, and were sentenced to nine months each.

CITB-ConstructionSkills’ product delivery manager Chris Little, said that staff discovered the fraud, known as proxy testing, after realising the men had taken multiple tests using several other workers’ identification passes which bore their own photographs.

He said: “Both men were being paid to take the test by other candidates, and it soon became clear to us that the same men were taking the test for other people each time.

CITB-ConstructionSkills Chief Executive Mark Farrar condemned the practice.

He said: “I’m glad the vigilance of CITB-ConstructionSkills staff caught and put a stop to this illegal activity.We support the industry by continually investigating test fraud, and we take it very seriously indeed.

“Proxy testing is self-defeating because it both endangers the lives of the people who solicit it and their colleagues on construction sites.

“Those who are found to be proxy testing will be reported to the police and could face prosecution.”

Both men are foreign nationals and will be deported once they have served their sentences.

Development

Recognizing this deficit, an international collaboration called The OHSAS Project Group was formed to create a single unified approach. The Group comprised representatives from National standards bodies, academic bodies, accreditation bodies, certification bodies and OSH institutions,with the UK’s national standards body, BSI Group, providing the secretariat.

Drawing on the best of existing standards and schemes, the OHSAS Project Group published the OHSAS 18000 Series in 1999. The Series consisted of two specifications: 18001 provided requirements for an OHS management system and 18002 gave implementation guidelines. As of 2005, around 16,000 organisations in more than 80 countries were using the OHSAS 18001 specification.By 2009 more than 54,000 certificates had been issued in 116 countries to OHSAS or equivalent OHSMS standards.

The 18001 specifications were updated in July 2007. Among other changes, the new specification was more closely aligned with the structures of ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 9001:2000 so that organisations could more easily adopt 18001 alongside existing management systems. Additionally the ‘health’ component of ‘health and safety’ was given greater emphasis.

Shortly later, BSI Group decided to adopt OHSAS 18001 as a British standard, hence ‘BS OHSAS 18001’BSI Group subsequently adopted the updated 18002 guidance specification for publication as BS OHSAS 18002 in 2008.

The OHSAS 18000 standards provide organisations with the elements of an effective OHSMS that can be integrated with other management requirements and help organizations achieve better occupational health and safety performance and economic objectives.

BS OHSAS 18001 specifies requirements for an OH&S management system to help an organisation develop and implement a policy and objectives, which take into account legal requirements and information about OH&S risks. It applies to all types and sizes of organisations and accommodates diverse geographical, cultural and social conditions.

BS OHSAS 18002 provides generic assistance for establishing, implementing or improving an OH&S management system, and demonstrates successful implementation of BS OHSAS 18001.

The OHSAS 18000 standards were written and published wholly outside of the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) framework. At time of writing (November 2010) ISO have no plans to adopt the standards. To avoid confusion, ISO 18000 does exist – but it is a radio frequency identification standard.

Using the same approach as the environmental standard ISO 14001, the aim of the OHSAS 18001 health and safety management specification is to provide a framework for providing a safe and healthy working environment.  Additionally, the standard provides guidelines on how to integrate health and safety policies into your overall management system.

Key requirements of the standard include:

• Writing a Health and Safety Policy
• Appreciation of your Health & Safety issues and their potential impacts
• Formalising control systems and monitoring processes
• Communication of policy and approach to staff and stakeholders
• Setting objectives and targets
• Compliance with relevant legislation

Some potential benefits of certification:

• Shows a clear commitment providing a safe working environment
• Delivers cost savings by minimising risks to employees
• Improved operational efficiency

Nationwide – free quality advice and information; helping you run a successful business.

Business Advice Open Days are the largest cross government business support road-shows of their kind, dedicated to providing free information and support to your business.

What support is available?

• full team of experts at each event
• advice and support – health and safety, starting a new business, business growth…
• help to understand and meet legal requirements
• enhance your business – funding, marketing and new technology.

Events near you

http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/regional.htm?ebul=hsegen&cr=3/9-jan-12

The Prime Minister has pledged to slay the ‘health and safety monster’ that is ‘strangling’ business.

David Cameron yesterday unveiled plans to cut red tape and prevent ambulance-chasing lawyers from cashing in on personal injury claims.

And he launched an attack on the ‘chancers’ who try to ‘leech’ off companies by seeking compensation for minor accidents.Prime Minister today vowed to make 2012 the year when ‘we kill off the health and safety culture for good’.

In future, the maximum amount lawyers can pocket from health and safety cases will be capped, with some getting as little as £400 for a single case.

Ministers want to stamp out the gravy train which allows some legal firms to pocket fees of £50,000 or more for fighting minor personal injury claims that pay claimants just a few hundred pounds.

These cases cost businesses billions each year in legal fees and hugely expensive insurance policies to protect themselves from vexatious claims.

Many arrange settlements with employees rather than risk the punitive legal fees that losing a case would bring.

Mr Cameron made the announcement in his first public appearance of the year, designed to show that the Government is making economic growth its priority.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to tackle legal fees in ‘no win, no fee’ cases because health and safety legislation has become an ‘albatross around the neck of British businesses’.

‘Building our economy up to strength requires a real pioneering, risk-taking spirit – and today we are smothering it in bubble wrap and red tape,’ he warned.

‘This must stop. So one of the Coalition’s New Year resolutions is this: kill off the health and safety culture for good. Our plans will deter the speculative health and safety chancers and those who leech off good businesses.

‘So what we’re going to be doing is to say that for claims up to £25,000 we’re going to cap the fees that lawyers can earn from those claims.

‘I think that will take a lot of the fear out of the health and safety monster and make sure that businesses feel they can get on and plan and invest and grow without feeling they’ll be strangled by red tape and health and safety regulation, which is very, very important for the future of our economy.’

An existing fixed costs scheme in England and Wales, which limits lawyers’ fees from personal injury claims worth under £10,000 resulting from road traffic accidents, will be extended to cover claims against employers. It will also be expanded to cover cases where the compensation payout is up to £25,000.

The current scheme caps legal costs at a fixed amount dependent on the number of stages needed to settle the case. If a defendant admits liability, the winning claimant’s lawyer can charge no more than £400 to handle the case.

Under the plans, Mr Cameron will also meet the bosses of Britain’s leading insurance companies at a Downing Street summit next month to ensure that businesses are not paying too much for cover that goes far beyond what is required by law.

The Government has already announced plans to change the health and safety law on strict liability for civil claims so that businesses are no longer automatically at fault if something goes wrong.

Ministers believe firms are too often held responsible even if they have done everything they can to prevent an accident. Speaking in Maidenhead, Berkshire, the Prime Minister added: ‘The key thing about health and safety is it’s not just the laws and rules and regulations, it’s also the culture of fear that many businesses have about health and safety.’

But Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, said: ‘Labelling workplace health and safety as a monster is appalling and unhelpful, as the reason our legislative system exists is to prevent death, injury or illness at work.

The 91-year-old was banned from  sitting in the cockpit of a museum’s Spitfire… because officials feared it was too risky.

He was stunned to be told the fighter had been given a facelift with paint containing tiny traces of radioactive radium and had no ‘proper seat’.

Mr Carter said: ‘You couldn’t make it up. I used to fly those things every day fighting the Germans.

‘Now that really was a health and safety concern, let me tell you!’

The former pilot was invited to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent to look at the type of Spitfire in which he flew top secret missions in Russia.

He is the last surviving member of a clandestine group known as Force Benedict, which protected the crucial port of Murmansk following the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1941.

‘I had to laugh to think I couldn’t sit in a stationary Spitfire in case I got hurt,’ said the veteran from Worcester.

‘I just wish the Luftwaffe had been so caring.’

A spokesman for Stoke council said without a seat and with the paint used, it was ‘thought best’ to stop Mr Carter from climbing in because of his age.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a fresh warning about workplace safety following a rise in the number people who suffered a major injury while at work in Pembrokeshire last year.

According to the latest statistics, there were 60 major injuries in the county during 2010/11 compared with 55 in 2009/10.

Another 125 workers suffered an injury or ill health which required them to take at least three days off work in 2010/11 compared to 133 in the previous year.

Nick O’Connor, principal inspector for the HSE in Wales, said: “These 60 workers in Pembrokeshire have had their lives changed forever by a major injury.

“These statistics highlight why we need good health and safety in British workplaces.

Employers need to spend their time tackling the real dangers that workers face and stop worrying about trivial risks or doing pointless paperwork.

“It’s important to remember that we still have one of the lowest rates of workplace deaths in Europe, but one death is still one too many.

“I would urge businesses to focus on helping to cut the number of deaths in 2012.”

HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS.  

A self-assessment tool for SMEs.

What are the essential elements of a successful safety management system?

These are described in HSE publication HSG 65, Successful Health and Safety Management.

They are summarised in a simple free leaflet INDG275, “Managing health and safety – Five steps to success” which you can download free of charge from the HSE website

The web page is: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg275.pdf

Managing health and safety is no different from managing any other aspect of your business.

You need to:

• Set a clear policy for health and safety

• Organise your staff for managing health and safety

• Plan for health and safety by setting targets and objectives, identifying hazards,

assessing risks and establishing standards against which you can measure your

performance

• Measure your health and safety performance in just the same way that you already measure production or sales

• Periodically  audit and review how well you are doing so that you can decide how to improve

We have no  health and  safety management system in place. What should we do?

You need to put one in place. Health and safety law requires you to have a health and safety Policy as well as appropriate arrangements for  Planning, Organising, Controlling, Monitoring and Reviewing the health and safety precautions that you are required by law to have in place. You can use the self-assessment  checklist below to help you decide what you need to do.

How can we demonstrate that we have a health and safety management system?

If you have a safety management system to a recognised standard such as OHSAS 18001 or BS 8800:2004 you can demonstrate that you have a safety management system by producing documented evidence, such as a record of an audit verifying that that the requirements of the standard are being met.

Is this the only way to demonstrate that we have a  health and safety management system?

No. You can demonstrate it in other ways provided you are able to show that you have the essential elements of a safety management system in place.

If you are already having your safety management system audited by competent auditors – who may be from your own staff or external auditors – then an audit report showing that the essential elements of a safety management system are present would be sufficient. It is not necessary for you to show that your safety management system is perfect or best in class.

You can use the self-assessment checklist below to help. It is unlikely that any one person in your business will be able to answer all the questions. You will need to involve your management team and consult your workforce, including any employee and safety representatives, when you answer the questions.

Of course, simply having a safety management system in place does not guarantee success in managing health and safety. Nor does it mean you are complying with all requirements of health and safety law. Everything depends on how your safety management system operates in practice and that will depend on many factors including:  management leadership; effective implementation of safety processes and procedures; continuously improving assessment of hazard and risks, followed by  enhanced controls; use of communication and consultation processes that develop ownership  at all levels in the business: and all these supported by monitoring, review and improvement of the systems.

How do we know how well we are managing health and safety?

You can benchmark yourselves against other employers using the Health and Safety

Performance Indicator for small and medium size enterprises. This is available free of charge at the Business Link website (www.businesslink.gov.uk/). See web  page: www.hspi.infoexchange.com. You can use it to see how well you are doing compared with other businesses in your industry as well as to check your own progress over time. You put in your own information by answering some simple questions. This takes about 15 minutes. The answers you give remain anonymous and confidential. Nobody else can see your results. But you can see the collective results for all businesses using the indicator and compare your own score with the rest of your industry.

As with any business system it takes time to build a successful health and safety management system and then to fine-tune it so that it continues to deliver satisfactory standards of health and safety at work. You can use the performance indicator to see where you are now and to check your progress at appropriate intervals.

HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS.  

A self-assessment tool for SMEs.

What are the essential elements of a successful safety management system?

These are described in HSE publication HSG 65, Successful Health and Safety Management.

They are summarised in a simple free leaflet INDG275, “Managing health and safety – Five steps to success” which you can download free of charge from the HSE website

The web page is: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg275.pdf

Managing health and safety is no different from managing any other aspect of your business.

You need to:

o Set a clear policy for health and safety

o Organise your staff for managing health and safety

o Plan for health and safety by setting targets and objectives, identifying hazards,

assessing risks and establishing standards against which you can measure your

performance

o Measure your health and safety performance in just the same way that you already measure production or sales

o Periodically  audit and review how well you are doing so that you can decide how to improve

We have no  health and  safety management system in place. What should we do?

You need to put one in place. Health and safety law requires you to have a health and safety Policy as well as appropriate arrangements for  Planning, Organising, Controlling, Monitoring and Reviewing the health and safety precautions that you are required by law to have in place. You can use the self-assessment  checklist below to help you decide what you need to do.

How can we demonstrate that we have a health and safety management system?

If you have a safety management system to a recognised standard such as OHSAS 18001 or BS 8800:2004 you can demonstrate that you have a safety management system by producing documented evidence, such as a record of an audit verifying that that the requirements of the standard are being met.

Is this the only way to demonstrate that we have a  health and safety management system?

No. You can demonstrate it in other ways provided you are able to show that you have the essential elements of a safety management system in place.

If you are already having your safety management system audited by competent auditors – who may be from your own staff or external auditors – then an audit report showing that the essential elements of a safety management system are present would be sufficient. It is not necessary for you to show that your safety management system is perfect or best in class.

You can use the self-assessment checklist below to help. It is unlikely that any one person in your business will be able to answer all the questions. You will need to involve your management team and consult your workforce, including any employee and safety representatives, when you answer the questions.

Of course, simply having a safety management system in place does not guarantee success in managing health and safety. Nor does it mean you are complying with all requirements of health and safety law. Everything depends on how your safety management system operates in practice and that will depend on many factors including:  management leadership; effective implementation of safety processes and procedures; continuously improving assessment of hazard and risks, followed by  enhanced controls; use of communication and consultation processes that develop ownership  at all levels in the business: and all these supported by monitoring, review and improvement of the systems.

How do we know how well we are managing health and safety?

You can benchmark yourselves against other employers using the Health and Safety

Performance Indicator for small and medium size enterprises. This is available free of charge at the Business Link website (www.businesslink.gov.uk/). See web  page: www.hspi.infoexchange.com. You can use it to see how well you are doing compared with other businesses in your industry as well as to check your own progress over time. You put in your own information by answering some simple questions. This takes about 15 minutes. The answers you give remain anonymous and confidential. Nobody else can see your results. But you can see the collective results for all businesses using the indicator and compare your own score with the rest of your industry.

As with any business system it takes time to build a successful health and safety management system and then to fine-tune it so that it continues to deliver satisfactory standards of health and safety at work. You can use the performance indicator to see where you are now and to check your progress at appropriate intervals.