HSE seeks commitment to competence

ADDRESSING a large gathering of delegates at The Institute of Quarrying’s recent annual conference symposium, Rob Pearce, HM Principal Inspector of Health and Safety, called on the quarrying industry to increase its commitment to competence and outlined the expectations of the HSE with regard to meeting the requirement to provide demonstrable evidence of competence, as set out in the Quarries Regulations 1999.

Mr Pearce commended the industry’s progress to date towards achieving its ‘Hard target’ but said dangerous incidents were still occurring because of ‘knowledge gaps’. He backed up his message with several graphic images of dangerous occurrences and incidents at quarries that had resulted in serious injury.

‘The industry has to have a greater understanding of the quarrying process, underpinned by knowledge of extraction engineering, as well as an awareness of the consequences of its decisions and greater involvement of the workforce,’ said Mr Pearce. ‘Many people in authority don’t understand the consequences of their actions. They assume they know how to do things but quite often they don’t.’

As a way of demonstrating evidence of competence, he cited the NVQs in Health, Safety and Environmental Management as the most suitable route for the quarrying industry, but he warned that they should not be regarded simply as a training tool. ‘Everyone has to be committed and there has to be a will to want to be safe,’ he said.

To emphasize the requirement for all employees and contractors to be able to produce demonstrable evidence of competence by 2010, he made reference to the theme of a subsequent presentation on ‘visible felt leadership’ by asking delegates whether the industry would prefer to see ‘visible felt enforcement’.

Mr Pearce concluded his presentation with a timely reminder that next year the HSE will be focusing its attention on safety issues relating to bench height, face stability and blasting.