Martin Isles, health and safety director of Britain’s Mineral Products Association and chairman of UEPG’s health and safety committee, explains the policies that are powering the UK industry towards achieving the ultimate goal of Zero Harm
Having dealt effectively, in terms of health and safety, with its inglorious past, the mineral products industry in Great Britain has now moved from being one of the most hazardous industries in the last century, to become acknowledged leader of its sector today.
As such, the UK’s
Milestone achieved early
Having reduced reportable injuries in the aggregates sector by 83% in the ten years since the first sector health and safety ‘hard target’ was introduced back in 1999, MPA set a further interim target: to halve the 1999 frequency rate of lost time injuries (LTIFR) by the end of 2014. The MPA is, therefore, proud to announce that this target has now been achieved, more than two years ahead of target.
Focus on Zero Harm
In its sector-leading drive towards achieving Zero Harm, MPA has devised an ambitious Safer by Competence policy to deliver demonstrable competence across the sector. This multi-faceted campaign comprises a series of demanding targets encompassing employees and contractors across all products and services within MPA’s footprint.
Safer by Competence sets out routes to meeting National Occupational Standards relevant to job functions, with a range of targets applicable to all in operational employment. For the great majority of MPA members, vocational qualifications routes provide the logical solutions and these represent the preferred approach. To help facilitate the planning and delivery of a fully competency-assured industry, the
Controlled by Martin Isles, and funded by the MPA, Safequarry.com has built up a unique collection of best practice, industry alerts, hot topics, guidance, toolbox talks, advice on theft and vandalism and, of global interest to many, provides the home of the Safer by Design initiative.
Family of MPA initiatives
The MPA’s Safer by Competence policy is supported by a family of Safer by. .. initiatives which contributed to MPA winning the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) SME Assistance Trophy 2012 and also to being shortlisted in the
These initiatives are:
Safer by Design: comprising voluntary guidance to address the design vacuum that persists between many manufacturers and users of heavy mobile plant and equipment. Safer by Design is strongly supportive of national, European and international standards-making systems but recognises that these are necessarily cumbersome and produce standards that are way short of the state-of-the-art claimed to be represented by the CE mark.
Safer by Sharing: MPA brokers one-to-one expert mentoring and addresses a wide variety of operational audiences through the series of Safer by Sharing mini-seminars. These involve expert speakers addressing prioritised topics with major audience participation. Twelve such Continuous Professional Development (CPD) seminars have been delivered from mid-2011 to date, with three more planned by the end of 2012.
Safer by Partnership: focusing on contractor safety, this MPA initiative, launched at the
• MPA/PICS Contractor National Database (commenced, November 2012).
• MPA Contractors’ Charter.
• MPA Regional Contractors’ Forums (four delivered in 2012).
• MPA Toolkit.
Historically, MPA statistics show Contractors to be disproportionately at risk of injury.
Safer by Association: a site-based health and safety evaluation tool which is free for all MPA companies. Aimed principally at helping SME members, the package addresses generic health and safety, with a series of product extensions under development to increase usefulness still further. Based on a common ‘traffic light’ system, each question has three answers (red = unacceptable; amber = marginal compliance, and green = best practice). The tool, therefore, also provides learning opportunities and thus its use is not confined to health and safety specialists.
Demonstrable competence: “a necessity”
These MPA health and safety initiatives combine to focus widespread attention on the need for competence and practical ways of demonstrating it.
Absolute deadlines enhance the incentives, but it is the stage-by-stage drive towards these achievements that shows MPA’s determination to assist its 465 members along the road to Zero Harm and equip them with sustainable defences in case of challenge.
Dyfrig James, chairman of the MPA, speaking at the MPA’s 2012 Health and Safety Conference and Awards, in London in November, said: “Competence is now the by-word in our industry. A necessity if we are to reach and maintain Zero Harm.”
Trade associations’ key role
The enduring economic challenges facing mineral products operating companies throughout Europe are bringing into ever sharper focus the need for effective, efficient and cohesive trade associations, national and European, staffed by personnel who understand the political as well as the technical and commercial needs of the industry and who can add value by professional interaction with stakeholders and by forming strategic partnerships, particularly with the
By example, the MPA operates an ever-popular annual health and safety awards scheme that provides a competitive focus for members of all sizes. Independent judges assess and decide the finalists and the winners of a diverse range of trophies. Combined with a health and safety conference, the prestigious MPA awards event provides a public platform for a video-rich programme to communicate the best ideas and innovations directly to a live audience and, via the media of www.Safequarry.com and MPA’s You-Tube channel, beyond to a worldwide audience.
Trade Associations need to inspire excellence in health and safety. To achieve this, they must create and facilitate industry-wide actions that, by mutual reinforcement, help develop and maintain a fully competency-assured industry.
MPA, for one, will not rest along this road to Zero Harm.
