Legislation construction sites

Barrett, M (1996) Deconstructing the new construction sites legislation. Construction Law Journal vol 12 no 3 pp 156-172. 

The term unpacking may seem a little odd. It comes from the way this book has been researched and prepared. It means to pull apart, to challenge, to question and to consider from as wide a variety of perspectives as possible, both academic and practice-based. It therefore lets us take safety apart within the specific construction site context to see what we can find - an ideal approach to help us answer the questions above, allowing us to explore and address them from outside the traditional frameworks of legislation, management systems and best practice. Instead, we can see how these approaches actually work in practice, how they are received by those who have to use them on a daily basis, and how they ultimately contribute to what safety actually is on sites. The way this process has been carried out is discussed in much more detail in Chapter 3. 

Within the UK, legislation forms the foundations of many of the management systems and practices found on UK construction sites. Historically, this legislation was focused on danger, security... 

It is not hard to find this legislative lexicon of safety - the legalese -on construction sites, often within safety documentation and induction materials. The safe systems of work and working environment found in Clauses 2(a) and 2(d) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, respectively can be easily found throughout our safety documentation. They are often either associated with general management practices or focused on specific work tasks such as falls/ fall prevention or excavations, where guidance often makes explicit reference to a safe system of work. ... 

It is therefore unsurprising that away from the formal manifestations of legal requirements in safety management systems and documents, safety becomes much more fluid and flexible. When those who work on sites everyday try to adopt the polarised lexicon of safety with their own understandings of construction site life, it doesn t quite work. Evidence of this can be readily found in site-produced safety documentation (as opposed to formal corporate documents distributed by contractor head offices), such as induction slides, where the site team often try to reposition safe/ unsafe within a wider context examples of practice are given as they were in the earliest legislation, the acknowledgement of variation... 

Race Relations Act 1976 requires that there be equal treatment of all people regardless of race or ethnic origin. However, again exceptions can be made where a breach of other legislation may be caused, such as Sikhs not wearing hard hats on a construction site or having beards in certain food... 

In the main, the principal Act affecting the particular groups of persons, usually on the basis of the kind of premises in which they worked, was supplemented by regulations. The Act and its regulations would be enforced by a particular inspectorate (e.g. by factory inspectors for factories and notional factories such as construction sites, mines inspectors for mines and quarries and local authority inspectors for offices and shops). Any breach of the appropriate legislation could lead to a prosecution by an inspector which in turn could lead to a fine usually imposed on the company or other organisation rather than an individual. 

Depending on the particular jurisdiction, duties of care iiity be imposed on principals (in respect of contractors), on occupiers, on the self-employed, and on manufacturers, designers, importers and suppliers of plant and chemicals. The legislation may include a duty of care on employers (and in some cases self-employed and employees) in relation to the health and safety of non-employees - for example, passers-by near a construction site. 

Introduction to Health and Safety in Construction has quickly established itself, in its first two years, as the standard text for students taking the NEBOSH National Certificate in Construction Safety and Health. It is also of great value to those working in the construction industry at all levels, particularly construction site managers and foremen. As it has become a significant work of reference for managers with health and safety responsibilities, it is a matter of prime importance that it should be kept up to date, as far as is possible, with new legislation and recent developments. 

Health and safety legislation is enforced in factories, hospitals, construction sites, nuclear and offshore sites, railways, local authority premises and so on by HSE inspectors. 

The polarised safe/unsafe of the legislative lexicon has unsurprisingly become embedded in organisational safety management practices and safety management systems. Binary evaluations of safety are therefore also found at the heart of various safety management activities, such as risk assessments and site inspections, and so have considerable influence on the construction of safety in practice. 

Czech Republic legislation which governs the safety aspects of siting, design, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning of nuclear facilities can be viewed as structured into the following two-level hierarchy ... 

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