Industry’s Perspective: Past, Present And Future
An update by Martin Isles, the QPA’s director for health and safety
The Quarry Products Association represents around 90% of the quarrying industry. With over 200 member companies throughout the length and breadth of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it is the principal voice of quarrying in the UK and one of the most influential and respected organizations within the European Aggregates Association (UEPG).
Hard-won improvements
In the UK, the QPA was the first organization to sign-up to the Health and Safety Commission’s Hard Target and has led from the front from the outset in developing numerous initiatives that have received countrywide support.
The Health and Safety Executive’s definition of ‘quarrying’ encompasses all surface-extracted minerals in Great Britain, so not only aggregates and industrial sands, but also opencast coal, heavy clay, slate, ornamental stone, architectural stone etc are all within scope. It is particularly pleasing, therefore, that the HSE results for this sector after four years, ie up until 31 March 2004, constitute a 46% reduction in accidents.
Homing in on aggregates quarrying
From the QPA’s perspective, the HSE statistics have two principal drawbacks: the inclusion in the sector of many quarrying activities outside the control of the QPA membership, coupled with the lengthy delay before even ‘provisional’ fiscal year HSE data are released.
Accordingly, the QPA recognized the need to develop a ‘surrogate’ Hard Target based on the calendar year accident data for the industry’s largest six quarrying companies. The outcome for the full five years to 31 December 2004 is a highly commendable 68% drop in accidents.
This leads the QPA to predict, with some confidence, that the HSE Hard Target of a 50% cut in the five years to 31 March 2005 will be achieved, and indeed is likely to be surpassed by a significant margin.
Sharing the keys to success
A crucial part of the proactive stance of the QPA is its leading role on the HSE-chaired Quarries National Joint Advisory Committee (QNJAC). This vibrant tripartite body benefits from representation by all the principal stakeholders. It has been cited by the HSC as a highly successful model, worthy of emulation by other industrial sectors. One of the keys to its success is the willingness of its members not only to contribute to the proceedings, but vitally to share experiences — both good and not so good — in a genuine spirit of co-operation for the common good.
The quarrying industry is well aware of its ‘historical overhang’ in terms of its health and safety performance. But the evidence from both the Regulator and the regulated is crystal clear: We are improving, and fast; indeed, at a rate that we believe exceeds that of any other industry!
New targets; new challenges
To quote HSE’s James Barrett, the QNJAC’s chairman, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has been picked; future improvements, therefore, will be that much harder to achieve. Consequently, industry sees it as vital that, in addition to supporting a new HSE Hard Target, the QPA itself will be launching at ‘Hillhead 2005’ its own QPA Health & Safety Hard Target. The latter will be applied to all activities of all QPA member companies with operations in Great Britain. The baseline will be the QPA’s analysis of members’ health and safety data for the calendar year 2004. As a sign of the sincerity and determination of the QPA’s membership, the gathering of this data has been made mandatory by the Council of the Quarry Products Association.
Among the immediate challenges for the future are the development of methods to evaluate contractors’ statistical safety performance and also, importantly, the development of indicators of health performance. The latter will be initially qualitative, but quantitative measures are under active consideration.
Spreading the word
Earlier this year the QPA published a double-CD pack com-prising its latest two guides1. These contain a wealth of good ideas from all sectors of the quarrying and aggregate products industry. With generously applied hyperlinks, the guides are user-friendly and facilitate instant viewing of numerous self-explanatory mini-videos illustrating what were adjudged to be the best innovative ideas.
Even allowing for the array of recent major company restructurings, the QPA Health & Safety Awards Scheme for 2005 has attracted over 140 entries. Already thoughts are turning to meeting the evolving needs of the industry in 2006. With its roots in the BQSF Safety Competition conceived nearly 30 years ago, the present-day scheme has avoided the temptation to emulate the more glitzy awards schemes that typify the construction and related sectors. Instead, the focus retains its intensely practical approach, seeking out the real ‘ideas people’ — often front-line workforce personnel.
At the annual awards ceremonies there is no greater demonstration of workforce participation and management recognition than for a dumptruck driver and a managing director to step forward, jointly, to collect an award. That is the reality of the modern-day quarrying industry, and the QPA is proud to be the catalyst that draws out this seemingly endless stream of good ideas, recognizing good and best practice, and communicating the resulting collations throughout the UK, Europe and beyond.
Conclusion
The industry has risen, successfully, to the HSC’s challenge — the evidence is to clearly to hand.
There is widespread acceptance that a competent workforce is a company’s principal and essential asset.
Members of the QPA, and hopefully others, are united in their determination to continue making major strides in safety
and health for the whole workforce.
The spirit of co-operation between the industry and its stakeholders will play a central role in powering the current momentum into the future.
The QPA will remain at the forefront of this drive towards its ultimate goal — zero incidents!
Reference
1. ‘Communicating Good Practice in Health and Safety’, Electronic Editions ’03 & ’04, combined double-CD pack, priced £10.00 from the QPA. Contact: [email protected]
