18 May 2017
Introduction
Columbia Design and Build (CI) Ltd, a local developer and building contractor, was fined a total of £41,000 by the Royal Court on 12 May 2017, after pleading guilty to five offences under the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 (HSW Law) and the Construction (Safety Provisions) (Jersey) Regulations 1970 (Construction Regulations).
Costs of £5,000 were also imposed.
The failure to comply with an immediate Prohibition Notice was recognised as a particularly serious offence, attracting a fine of £15,000; double that imposed for each of the other four offences also relating to unsafe work at height.
Despite no injuries being reported as a result of the failures, the Court gave a clear message that this was simply down to chance, and sentenced the company on the basis that they had potentially very serious, if not fatal, consequences.
This reinforces the message from previous health and safety prosecutions that the absence of an accident or ill health does not preclude a duty holder being held to account for failing to meet their general legal obligations.
Background
The prosecution arose as a result of a pattern of poor performance and repeated failures of the company to properly manage health and safety during the construction and development of buildings bordering New St James Place and Don Road, St Helier, between 5 February and 20 November 2015.
The Health and Safety Inspectorate (HSI) made continual efforts to try and improve the level of safety for persons working on the site, including the serving of Legal Enforcement Notices and through proactive and reactive visits.
Despite these efforts the company consistently failed to actively manage the performance of its sub-contractors and its own employees working on site, resulting in persons repeatedly being exposed to serious risks to their safety.
The prosecution
The offences, which were all admitted by the company, related to:
- unsafe working at height: serious concerns were identified by the HSI on 13 separate occasions, and resulted in three immediate Prohibition Notices being served on the company and a further two Prohibition Notices being served on sub-contractors between February and November 2015
- three separate charges were taken in respect of unsafe work at height under the Construction Regulations; work on flat roofs, work on sloping roofs, and unsafe access and egress to areas of work which exposed workers to the risk of a significant fall from a roof edge
- a Prohibition Notice being breached within hours of it being served
- members of the public being exposed to serious risks to their safety on several occasions due to a failure to provide adequate segregation from high risk working activities. This included a large section of concrete falling onto a pavement whilst it was being cut; materials being thrown from height to the road below and the failure to take any precautions to prevent pedestrians accessing the area where a crane was operating.
The Court made a number of important observations in this case and delivered a clear message that it recognises the HSW Law as a very important piece of legislation and ensuring safety at work is paramount.
In this instance, it was quite clear that the employer did not ensure adequate health and safety management and instead the company relied on the site management to do this on its behalf. The court stated that this was unacceptable and ‘it is just not good enough to delegate responsibility for managing health and safety’.
The evidence that the company breached a Prohibition Notice was recognised as a particularly serious offence, and one which attracts the most severe penalties under the HSW Law. This was reflected in the final conclusions, where the charge relating to the breach of the Notice resulted in a fine of £15,000, compared to three fines of £6,000 and one of £8,000 for the other four charges.
End notes
This prosecution was taken under the Construction (Safety Provisions) (Jersey) Regulations 1970, as the offences were committed whilst these Regulations were still in force.
It should be noted that these Regulations have since been repealed and replaced by the ‘Management in Construction (Jersey) Regulations 2016’, which came into force on 1 October 2016.
Guidance on the Construction Regulations 2016 (size 1.02mb)
gov.je