£50,000 fine for H&S breach

[luctor et emergo]

Why? Other dock owners may just decide to make proper provision.

 

It can't be that hard surely.

 

By the way, the report I read put some of the blame on the (erected) cratch cover making egress from the boat more dangerous.

 

 

Are you a dock owner?

 

I know, you are not.

 

Yawn

 

 

Whatever, you heard it here first. Over the top elfinsavety shuts down self awerness and resposibility

 

 

It will also finish off tne remaining coal boats...

[John Holden]

Are you a dock owner?

 

I know, you are not.

 

Yawn

 

 

Whatever, you heard it here first. Over the top elfinsavety shuts down self awerness and resposibility

 

 

It will also finish off tne remaining coal boats...

 

???,?

[luctor et emergo]

???,?

 

 

That sums it up nicely.

[John Holden]

That sums it up nicely.

 

You really have lost me!

[furnessvale]

No I never use dock equipment as they charge a fortune for it round here.

I always use my own......

 

Not that I agree with it, but haven't previous posters indicated that dock owners will still have a duty to ensure that DIY users work safely? ie if your own gear isn't compliant, they dare not let you use it?

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[luctor et emergo]

You really have lost me!

 

 

Obviously..

 

( to easy..)

[John Holden]

Obviously..

 

( to easy..)

 

I sense a bit of a dig here so I'll just say good night.

[luctor et emergo]

I sense a bit of a dig here so I'll just say good night.

 

 

Obviously..

[mayalld]

Why? Other dock owners may just decide to make proper provision.

 

Not so.

 

They will simply NOT provide the equipment.

 

The booking form will then say "The proprietors will not provide any access equipment. It is the responsibility of the hirer to provide suitable equipment"

 

At which point every user of the dock will nip off to HSS and hire a suitable walkway to access the boat (or more likely, they will put a plank across)

 

If the HSE decides that "no, that won't do", and insist that the dock operator has to ensure that a DIYer operates safely with safe equipment, the operator will have to provide a supervisor for any DIY use, which will mean that DIY use costs the same as having the work done, and that will be an end to DIY use of dry docks

[Barry]

not really.

 

what needs to happen is for anyone concerned with this kind of activity to think about how they conduct their site.

 

all that is needed is a risk assessment, a method statement, site induction and training where relevant.

 

it will mean costs will go up.

 

this is the way of the world these days.

 

as an aside, i was challenged at work for not wearing a hi vis whilst steam cleaning some plant in a yard on my own. there was to be no forklift or vehicle movements that day, i am still trying to work out what or whom was at risk.

 

health and safety directives are normally a very good idea, its usually how they are applied thats the problem.

 

I agree with what you say. It is the application of H&S guidance that is the problem - not H&S itself.

 

Application of H&S requires a complete about turn in thinking. Previously nobody had to think about how they did their job - they just did what they always did and if somebody got hurt it was a simple 'accident' and nobody's fault. Application of H&S needs people to put aside that approach and instead actively consider what risks there are and what can be done about them.

 

That is a huge change in thinking and in my experience what normally happens is that people are, naturally, extremely reluctant to reverse the way they think. Common protests I have observed are are:-

 

"Its not my responsibility"

 

"Its too hard"

 

"They are responsible for themselves"

 

"Its going to stop me doing my job"

 

"I can't afford it"

 

"I haven't got the time"

 

 

It is H&S training that is the problem. Large organisations have the resources to pay for someone to think about H&S and to employ people to train everybody to reverse their thinking.

 

Small businesses have to be self taught about H&S and that is where the system falls down. Legislation and guidance is in place but training for small businesses is not easy to obtain so small businesses fall foul of the legislation when something goes wrong. Its dead easy for the government, via the courts, to say "the legislation is in place, if you don't comply you will be punished" What the government haven't done is to fill in the gap and provide the training that small businesses need.

 

In my opinion its classic government thinking. "This is what needs to happen - do it" while having scant regard for how it is actually going to be done. The result is that small businesses spend years scampering about half heartedly or over enthusiastically trying to comply with little understanding of what is actually required (hence the poorly trained, over officious H&S managers of the type that Gazza referred to). Or else they ignore the problem and hope that it never goes wrong for them

[Tam & Di]

Not that I agree with it, but haven't previous posters indicated that dock owners will still have a duty to ensure that DIY users work safely? ie if your own gear isn't compliant, they dare not let you use it?

 

George ex nb Alton retired

 

 

Certainly we had some sort of offical at our yard in the 80s where we were told that it was our responsibility, so it's not a new thing. At that time it was specifically in the context of electric extension cables plugged into our supply by people on hard standing, but I understood it to be a general point too. We were told in no uncertain terms that we could not get customers to sign a waiver clause to allow us to avoid responsibility for their gear.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Tam & Di

[AJLintern]

So I suppose once on the boat via the suitably hand-railed gang plank, access to the rear deck is not allowed unless that is then fitted with hand rails too...? How about a boat not in a dry dock but craned out on to a hard standing - same potential drop but you access the boat using a ladder from which you can fall. Should a scaffold be used for access instead...?

[carlt]

Considering the scaff planks and antique ladders used in most affordable dry docks that will be deemed norty, in future, it will make wooden narrow boat restoration and maintenance out of reach of all but the wealthiest.

 

I usually used an off-cut of a boat plank because they were invariably wider, thicker and less crunchy than the dried out old scaff planks usually supplied.

 

Should a scaffold be used for access instead...?

I used to use an old set of warehouse steps that I found at the tip which were very safe and stable.

 

Proper stairs wit a handrail and wheels to drag them about.

 

I wish I hadn't given them away now.

[BruceinSanity]

When we had Sanity Again blacked at Norbury the other year, we stayed on board and they supplied a secure plank with handrails, fixed at each end, so it's not that difficult. We kept the cratch cover rolled out of the way, but you'd want to anyway with blacking and paint splashing about.

 

And their prices are very competitive.

 

 

(No connection other than as a satisfied customer.)

[ditchcrawler]

 

 

I used to use an old set of warehouse steps that I found at the tip which were very safe and stable.

 

Proper stairs wit a handrail and wheels to drag them about.

 

I wish I hadn't given them away now.

that's what I used when I was fitting out, I borrowed mine from the chap opposite where I was working. It made it very easy to carry things onto the boat.

[Steilsteven]

This isn't health and safety gone mad, the evidence is there, when you read the report.

 

The item cited as the main cause of the accident was a ''Youngmans'' type working platform. These have aluminium stretchers and manufactured non slip board walkway. This was strung from the dockside to the metal gunwale of the boat. There was no handrail fitted, even though there are kits available for this purpose.

No doubt, the manufacturers advise the fitting of handrails and the proper securing of the platform when mounted on metal supports such as steel scaffolding.

Anyone who has used ''Youngman'' type platforms mounted on scaffolding, as I do very often at work, will tell you how dangerous they can be if not secured.

 

All the H&E rules and guidance in the World won't stop workers from being neglectful about their own safety and I suspect this is the way that they this piece of equipment was used by them. If an inspector had visited the premises and found workers using it in this way he/she would have stopped all work until this was remedied. This may or may not have happened ( it's not unknown that safety equipment gets removed because a worker thinks it's unnecessary ) but whether it did or didn't, the ultimate responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Boss and it's no good him saying he didn't know because the information is readily available.

 

The owner/owners of the dock had a responsibility to the hirer to ensure that the dock and all equipment hired or lent was suitable and safe to use and that the hirer was fully aware of the proper and safe use of said equipment. This they failed to do.

 

I think they got off lightly with a fine.

 

Keith

[Richard T]

A good guide is BS:EN 14122 which gives guidance on the safe access to plant/machinery for operation/maintenance. A very weighty tome but unless adhered to leaves plant designers open to prosecution under H&S legislation if there is an accident. It cost a well known quarry operator over £1m in fines when an access walkway failed and a man was killed. A couple of years ago I was working on an industrial plant being installed by a german company and we had them modify around 200m of handrail because it didn't comply with this BS when their design brief was that it had to.

There is no reason why a small operator should be treated any differently to a large one - H&S legisaltion exists for all to comply with and usually for very good reasons. It certainly might have saved my father from getting a broken neck on a building site some 45 years ago.

Incidentally most building sites do not permit working from step ladders - platforms are used instead.

[Dave_P]

I have to say I'm really shocked about some of the responses on this thread, trotting out the tired 'elfinsafety gone mad' rubbish.

 

Please don't forget that a man died!

 

This is a terrible tragedy and made worse by the fact that it could have been easily prevented by some simple common sense and consideration on the part of the person responsible for safety on the site. This is why we have legislation (in the case the Health and Safety at Work act 1974) and why risk assessments are required. Any fool can see that what was going on at this boatyard was dangerous and therefore posed a risk.

 

It is up to the boatyard to take reasonable steps to mitigate that risk. If they decide that the best way to do this is to require the customers to provide their own access equipment then good luck to them but I can't see that standing up in court for one minute! Lets be clear who is responsible for health and safety on the site - the owner! It is up to them to deal with it, not to sidestep it. As previous posters have pointed out, it is the owner who is in the best position to assess the risks and find the best solutions, not the customers.

 

Don't be fooled by silly tabloid storied about over-zealous individuals banning kids from playing conkers. The real story is that without adquate legislation we would still have tens of thousands of people killed in the workplace every year as used to happen in the past. Last year 173 people died in the workplace, each one of these is a tragedy but we should all be celebrating how low this figure is. If a fine of £50,000 sends a message to other boatyards to look at all their practices and look for ways to make things safer, then it's entirely justified. Most of the time, improving H&S is much more a case of applying common sense than spending lots of money. After all, how much does a secured platform with a rail actually cost? A lot less than £50,000!!!

 

The HSE didn't cause a business to close, the owners did that for themselves, when they let a man die through negligence.

 

Rant over.

[mayalld]

I have to say I'm really shocked about some of the responses on this thread, trotting out the tired 'elfinsafety gone mad' rubbish.

 

Please don't forget that a man died!

 

This is a terrible tragedy and made worse by the fact that it could have been easily prevented by some simple common sense and consideration on the part of the person responsible for safety on the site. This is why we have legislation (in the case the Health and Safety at Work act 1974) and why risk assessments are required. Any fool can see that what was going on at this boatyard was dangerous and therefore posed a risk.

 

It is up to the boatyard to take reasonable steps to mitigate that risk. If they decide that the best way to do this is to require the customers to provide their own access equipment then good luck to them but I can't see that standing up in court for one minute! Lets be clear who is responsible for health and safety on the site - the owner! It is up to them to deal with it, not to sidestep it. As previous posters have pointed out, it is the owner who is in the best position to assess the risks and find the best solutions, not the customers.

 

Yes, it is a tragedy that a man died.

 

However, you appear to have been sucked into the ambulance chaser's mentality that say "if something bad happens, somebody else is to blame".

 

There seems to be a marked reluctance to say that sometimes the fault lies with the person who was injured or killed.

 

The man who died hired a dry dock from Worsley Dry Dock, and was working on his own boat. HE chose to use an unsafe way of boarding the boat.

 

How on earth is it the responsibility of the Dry Dock to supervise him and ensure that he works in a safe way?

[John Holden]

Yes, it is a tragedy that a man died.

 

However, you appear to have been sucked into the ambulance chaser's mentality that say "if something bad happens, somebody else is to blame".

 

There seems to be a marked reluctance to say that sometimes the fault lies with the person who was injured or killed.

 

The man who died hired a dry dock from Worsley Dry Dock, and was working on his own boat. HE chose to use an unsafe way of boarding the boat.

 

How on earth is it the responsibility of the Dry Dock to supervise him and ensure that he works in a safe way?

 

How is it not the responsibility of the Dry Dock owners to ensure that people using their facilities do so in a safe manner?

[Dave_P]

Yes, it is a tragedy that a man died.

 

However, you appear to have been sucked into the ambulance chaser's mentality that say "if something bad happens, somebody else is to blame".

 

There seems to be a marked reluctance to say that sometimes the fault lies with the person who was injured or killed.

 

The man who died hired a dry dock from Worsley Dry Dock, and was working on his own boat. HE chose to use an unsafe way of boarding the boat.

 

How on earth is it the responsibility of the Dry Dock to supervise him and ensure that he works in a safe way?

 

At the risk of repeating what others have already said:

 

1. Because the owner is far better placed to assess the risk.

 

2. Because the law is very clear on this (it has nothing to do with any 'mentality') and a good owner/employer would have at least some grasp of what is required under the law (which has been in place for nearly 40 years!).

 

If anyone is playing the 'someone else is to blame' card it's those people who would seek to pass the blame from the owner to the customer. This is what unscrupulous employers have tried to do over many, many years and it is exactly what our Health and Safety legislation has largely stopped. The correctness of this approach is clearly proven by the continuing decline in workplace accidents over the last few hundred years.

 

When I go onto someone else's business premises, they have responsibilty for my safety, it's as simple as that. This doesn't mean that I don't also have to play my part but I simply can't be expected to do a site risk assessment each time I enter a premises. In the same way, Richard Ferris would not have been as well placed as the owner to judge the suitability of the access platform. It's pretty normal that a customer would trust the owner that the equipment provided was suitable. If you read Steilsteven's previous post you can see that it wasn't suitable and that:

 

1. The owner should have known that.

2. It could have easily been made suitable.

 

The law is so clear on this, I'm amazed that it's caused this amount of debate.

[Dave_P]

 

 

How on earth is it the responsibility of the Dry Dock to supervise him and ensure that he works in a safe way?

 

I think you've missed the point here. It's not the responsibilty of the dry dock to supervise him or ensure that he works in a safe way. It's the responsibility of the dock to ensure his safely, as far as is reasonably practicable. In this case they didn't make any effort to do this. They could have done simply and cheaply by providing a suitable platform. A supervisor isn't needed. When I go to the supermarket, I'm not allocated a supervisor to protect me from objects falling off the top shelf! I'm sure the supermarkets generally find it much simpler to not overstock the shelves and cause a 'falling object' hazard.

 

This really isn't rocket science. Like I've said previously, it's just common sense.

 

Personally, having read this, I feel a certain amount of shame from remembering occassions when I've seen platforms like this being used in dry docks and not spoken to the owner about it. I will in future.

[mayalld]

At the risk of repeating what others have already said:

 

1. Because the owner is far better placed to assess the risk.

 

2. Because the law is very clear on this (it has nothing to do with any 'mentality') and a good owner/employer would have at least some grasp of what is required under the law (which has been in place for nearly 40 years!).

 

If anyone is playing the 'someone else is to blame' card it's those people who would seek to pass the blame from the owner to the customer. This is what unscrupulous employers have tried to do over many, many years and it is exactly what our Health and Safety legislation has largely stopped. The correctness of this approach is clearly proven by the continuing decline in workplace accidents over the last few hundred years.

 

When I go onto someone else's business premises, they have responsibilty for my safety, it's as simple as that. This doesn't mean that I don't also have to play my part but I simply can't be expected to do a site risk assessment each time I enter a premises. In the same way, Richard Ferris would not have been as well placed as the owner to judge the suitability of the access platform. It's pretty normal that a customer would trust the owner that the equipment provided was suitable. If you read Steilsteven's previous post you can see that it wasn't suitable and that:

 

1. The owner should have known that.

2. It could have easily been made suitable.

 

The law is so clear on this, I'm amazed that it's caused this amount of debate.

 

If the dry dock rigged the walkway, or told him that he should use it, then you may have a point.

 

If he merely utilised equipment that was stored in the building you do not.

 

He hired the premises, in order to carry out work. He was not employed by the owners to carry out work.

 

The owners have a duty to ensure that the premises are not in an unsafe condition, but that duty cannot extend to ensuring that he provides himself with a safe walkway.

 

If a dry dock owner wishes to hire out a dry dock with the proviso that the owner must provide his own equipment (pressure washer, access equipment etc) then that would be perfectly legitimate.

[Dave_P]

If the dry dock rigged the walkway, or told him that he should use it, then you may have a point.

 

If he merely utilised equipment that was stored in the building you do not.

 

He hired the premises, in order to carry out work. He was not employed by the owners to carry out work.

 

The owners have a duty to ensure that the premises are not in an unsafe condition, but that duty cannot extend to ensuring that he provides himself with a safe walkway.

 

If a dry dock owner wishes to hire out a dry dock with the proviso that the owner must provide his own equipment (pressure washer, access equipment etc) then that would be perfectly legitimate.

 

All I can say is that you're wrong. Not just because i say so but because the law and those who judged this case also say so. I don't want to repeat what I and others have already said which point out the ways in which you're wrong so I'll end my contribution here.

[mayalld]

All I can say is that you're wrong. Not just because i say so but because the law and those who judged this case also say so. I don't want to repeat what I and others have already said which point out the ways in which you're wrong so I'll end my contribution here.

 

Indeed I am wrong, because the law says that I am wrong.

 

In this great country of ours I am free to opine that the law is an ass.

 

The Dry dock was found guilty because the man fell from equipment belonging to them. It is unclear whether they supplied that equipment to him in that condition, or if he rigged up the platform himself.

 

I maintain that if the Operator makes clear that the contract is simply for the hire of the dock, and that NO EQUIPMENT will be supplied (and removes any equipment), or offers to supply other equipment as optional extras, and clearly states that "the user warrants that he will erect a suitable means of access to the vessel", they would not be responsible.