Managing HSE & Legal Obligations

The Legal Framework

As a scaffolding subcontractor, you must follow UK health and safety law. These are not optional. Break them and you face prosecution, fines, and personal liability for you and your senior managers.

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA)

The base law for all health and safety in the UK. Section 2(1) says employers must look after the health, safety, and welfare of their employees. Section 3 says you must run your business without putting other workers or members of the public at risk.

Breaking HSWA is a crime. You face unlimited fines and up to 2 years in prison (for senior managers).

Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015)

CDM 2015 covers all construction projects. It sets out who does what:

• Client: The person or company paying for the work. They appoint a principal designer and principal contractor.
• Principal Designer: Looks after health and safety during the design stage.
• Principal Contractor: Looks after health and safety while the work is being done.
• Contractor (you): Anyone doing construction work, including self-employed scaffolders. You must plan, manage, and check your work to make sure it is safe.

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

You must do a risk assessment before any work that could hurt your team or others. Find the hazards, work out how bad they could be, and put controls in place to reduce the risk. Write it down (or make a written statement if you have fewer than 5 employees).

Working at Height Regulations 2005

These cover any work above 2 metres. First choice: avoid it if you can. Second choice: stop falls with guard-rails, nets, or covers. Third choice: catch falls with harnesses and lanyards. This is the control hierarchy.

CDM 2015 — Your Duties

Under CDM 2015, you have specific duties as a Contractor. You cannot pass them to someone else. They are your responsibility.

Your key duties

• Plan, manage, and monitor your work: Write a plan (method statement and risk assessment) showing how you will do the work safely. Manage the work by supervising your team and enforcing safe procedures. Monitor it by inspecting regularly to catch problems before they cause harm.
• Make sure workers have the right skills, knowledge, and training: Do not send unqualified or untrained people to scaffolding work. CITB training is the minimum. Specialist work (such as temporary works design) needs specific competence.
• Work with the principal contractor and other contractors: The principal contractor coordinates everyone on site. Share your plan, go to site meetings, and coordinate your work so one trade does not create hazards for another.
• Brief your workers: Before work starts, brief your team on the task, the hazards, the controls, the site rules, and what to do in an emergency. This is a toolbox talk. Write it down.
• Follow site rules: The main contractor or client will issue rules (such as no hot work without a fire watch, no entry without ID, or no pedestrian access during crane work). You and your team must follow them.
• Do not start until you are ready: Before erecting scaffold, the ground must be prepared, drawings approved, and site access confirmed. If these are not done, do not start. Starting too early means you will have to stop or redo work. This leaves you exposed to claims and safety problems.

Working at Height & Inspection

All scaffolding work is at height. Poor safety management is the number one reason scaffolders get prosecuted.

Hierarchy of controls

1. Avoid: Can you do the work at ground level or at height? Pre-assemble scaffold parts on the ground first. Then lift them into place. This cuts the time your team works at height.
2. Stop falls: Guard-rails (1.1 metres high, mid-rail, toe board) are the strongest control. They are a solid barrier that stops workers falling.
3. Catch falls: If you cannot stop a fall, use fall arrest equipment (harness, lanyard, anchor point, and rescue plan). This breaks the fall and stops impact with the ground.

PPE (hard hat, hi-vis) is a last resort. It is not a substitute for proper engineering controls.

Inspection schedules: BS EN 12811-1 and SG4:22

All scaffolds must be inspected by the rules in BS EN 12811-1:

• Pre-use inspection: Before the scaffold is used, a competent person must check every part, every connection, and the base. They must sign off and give a certificate.
• Weekly inspection: A competent person must check the scaffold at least once a week. Check more often if the site is windy, exposed, or if you see damage or movement.
• Inspection after bad weather: High winds, heavy rain, earth tremors, or other events that could affect stability need immediate inspection and sign-off before the scaffold is used again.
• Keep records: Keep all inspection records on site. The HSE can ask for them at any time. If you cannot show them, you are at fault.

Near Misses, Incidents & RIDDOR

A near miss is an accident that does not cause injury but could have. The only difference between a near miss and an injury is luck. Near misses are free warnings. Learn from them.

Near-miss reporting

Have a procedure for reporting near misses. When one happens (a fall caught by a guardrail, a load nearly hitting someone, a slip that does not cause injury), the worker should report it straight away. Then investigate: Why? What control failed? How do we stop it next time?

Write down every near miss. Look for patterns. If five near misses happen in the same place or on the same task, you have found a systemic problem that needs urgent fixing.

Near-miss reporting also shows the HSE you have a strong safety culture. If an incident does happen and you can show you reported and acted on near misses, it proves you were proactive, not careless.

RIDDOR reporting

RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) tells you what to report to the HSE:

• Deaths: Any death from work.
• Serious injuries: Fractures, amputations, dislocations, poisoning from toxic exposure, eye damage, loss of consciousness, hospital treatment for more than 24 hours.
• Over-7-day injuries: Any injury that keeps the person off work or unable to do their normal job for more than 7 consecutive days (day 8 counts).
• Dangerous occurrences: Events that could have killed or seriously hurt someone but did not (such as scaffold collapse, dropped load from a crane, or collapse of temporary structure).

Report within 15 days for injuries, or immediately for deaths or dangerous occurrences. Use the HSE online system at hse.gov.uk. Keep a copy of what you report.

Toolbox talks protect you

A toolbox talk is a short safety briefing (5–10 minutes) you give your team before they start a task. Cover:

• What the task is and what will be done.
• The hazards (falls, struck-by objects, tiredness, bad weather).
• How you will control them (guard-rails, PPE, safe procedures, breaks).
• Site rules (access routes, no-go areas, emergency procedures).
• What to do if something goes wrong (tell the supervisor, stop work, evacuate if needed).

Write it down. Note the date, time, task, who attended, and what you covered. If an incident happens and the HSE investigates, you can show you briefed your team and they knew the hazards and controls. This proves you were thorough and can cut penalties.

Downloads

Site safety and compliance tools for this module. Download, adapt, and use them on your projects.