Kilgallen and Partners aim to conduct all aspects of its business activities in such a way as to achieve the best possible standards of health, safety and welfare for its employees, clients and others.
We regard the successful management of health and safety as equal to all our other business activities.The five main steps involved in the management of health and safety derive from the following:
1. Our Safety Statement which outlines our policies and which reinforces the mandatory requirement to carry out all work in accordance with relevant statutory provisions.
2. The positive health and safety culture within our organisation encapsulating:
- Competence: ensuring that our staff possess adequate and relevant education, training and experience;
- Control: allocating responsibilities, securing commitment, instruction and supervision;
- Co-operation: between individuals and groups;
- Communication: spoken, written and visible.
3. Planning for health & safety: Kilgallen & Partners regard forward planning on a project by project basis as the key to ensuring that health and safety is properly managed on our projects. This involves setting objectives, identifying hazards, assessing risks, implementing standards of performance and developing a positive culture.
4. Measuring our performance through active and reactive monitoring.
5. Learning from experience through auditing and reviewing.
Eliminating hazards and reducing risk, if feasible, at design stage is the primary step in managing safety and health on construction projects. All designers must take into account the existing hazards on the project relevant to areas of concern and consider these with respect to the potential new hazards generated by the design process for construction workers, end users, and members of the public.
The first duty imposed on a designer derives from Regulation 15(1)(a)(i) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations 2006 to 2010, which stipulates that “in carrying out work related to the design of a particular project, a designer shall …..take account of the general principles of prevention.”
The General Principles of Prevention comprise the following set of nine principles to be taken account of by designers:
1. Avoid risks
2. Evaluate unavoidable risks
3. Combat risks at source
4. Adapt work to the individual, especially the design of places of work
5. Adapt the place of work to technical progress
6. Replace dangerous articles, substances, or systems of work by non-dangerous or less dangerous articles, substances, or systems
7. Use collective protective measures over individual measures
8. Develop an adequate prevention policy
9. Give appropriate training and instruction to employees.
They are regarded as being a hierarchy and thus listed in general order of preference. Measures at the top of the list are considered to be more effective than those lower down.
Client Duties & Responsibilities
In accordance with the Health & Safety legislation, a Client is a person or company for whom construction work is undertaken for the purpose of trade, business or undertaking.
All such clients have by law the following duties:
1. The Client must appoint in writing “a competent Project Supervisor for the design process” (PSDP) for every project, at or before the start of the design process. The Client should obtain written confirmation of the acceptance of this appointment.
2. The Client must appoint in writing “a competent Project Supervisor for the construction process” (PSCS) for every project, prior to the start of construction work. The Client should obtain written confirmation of the acceptance of this appointment.
3. Be reasonably satisfied that each designer, PSDP, PSCS & contractor are competent and have adequate resources to enable them to comply with the regulations.
4. Co-operate with the persons appointed to these roles.
5. Provide a copy of the preliminary plan prepared by the PSDP to all prospective persons tendering for the role of PSCS.
6. Ensure that construction work does not start until the health and safety plan has been prepared.
7. Retain the ‘Safety File’ for the project and pass it on to any new owner.
Kilgallen & Partners have extensive experience as Designers and as PSDP on numerous construction projects and can ensure that the duties of the Client are fulfilled by assessing the competency and resources of third party designers, the PSDP and the PSCS proposed for relevant construction projects.
As part of our project management services, Kilgallen & Partners have also fulfilled the role of PSCS on major building, restoration, conservation and civil engineering projects.