Health and Safety in Construction Industry
The construction industry is by far the most dangerous one as it takes more lives every year and results in many short- and long-term minor or severe injuries. The UK government regulatory bodies have been playing a significant role in ensuring that proper health and safety procedures are followed. Throughout the last four decades, its role has been impeccable in decreasing fatalities in the construction industry, although the excessive rules and regulations, frequent changes, bureaucratic structure and lack of project management and risk management techniques have dented its efficiency in protecting small construction companies and contractors, resulting in a compensation and claim culture engulfed with individual profiteers such as insurance companies, lawyers and health and safety consultants. These excessive regulations have pushed constructors to adopt some illegal practices in order to decrease cost and probability of claims from injured workers. The risk management and assessment measure provided to the constructors and other stakeholders are in development stage and a more concentrated effort is required from these regulating bodies to ensure a project management like approach is followed in public domain and private constructors.
Introduction:
Public bodies work in a certain way, a way that is different from private entities as it involves more procedures, assessments and most of the time politics that calls for a quick execution of a public project without much emphasis given to other related factors such as environment, safety or long terms usability. When assembling a building or infrastructure, public organisations besides other risk preventive initiatives, have the responsibility to ensure that risks related to health and safety are being catered to and prepared for, not only for the public but also for the civil workers. It is interesting to see that about 40% of all construction activities in the United Kingdom are undertaken by the government by outsourcing the work to private construction companies or by using the public mechanism. The role of government in reforming and rebuilding major parts of United Kingdom after World War II remains impressive although with time the industry requires more robust health and safety provisions for all involved parties. There have been major advancements in the field of constructions with new techniques and machinery, although the industry remains a dangerous one recording an average of 17 construction labourers killed every year only in public construction projects. 112 annual deaths were reported in all other industries while construction industry alone reported approx. 335 deaths in the year 2002 (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, 2012).
The industry itself has seen major turnarounds or advancements and the number of fatalities reported have reduced during the past two decades. The industry only employs 5% of total employees in United Kingdom although about 27% of total fatal injuries are still related to construction industry as reported in 2010-2011 (HSE, 2011).
Research Objectives:
In order to better understand the causes and working of public organisations in relation to health and safety, the research report aims to analyse whether the current regulations and processes in place are good enough to achieve the necessary objectives that is minimizing fatalities and injuries.
The more specific research objectives covered in this research are;
1. To ascertain whether there are deficiencies in current project management practices, or the systems used by public sector related to risk management of health and safety issues in construction industry.
2. Highlight the effects these deficiencies have on the management of health and safety risks
3. Practical suggestions for catering such deficiencies.
Research Methodology:
There are many methods available through which research can be conducted however it is important to select the one which suits best the overall requirement of the objectives.
The best and most reliable research method must be applied in this case as it is a matter of health and safety. Without the discovery of deficiencies in the current system, the research would be useless. Therefore, discovering deficiencies would require a complete research from scratch.
The method used in conducting this research is explorative study as it is the best possible research method for this situation due to the fact the current problems are not defined properly yet and a research design along with data collection is required.
Exploratory study is used for problems that have not been defined clearly which is the reason why, explorative study helps in coming up with the best research design, data collection method and also, selection of subjects related to a specific research. The study is conducted with extreme precautionary measures.
The results must be reliable and since the current system is flawed, other research...
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