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Procurement, the Supply Chain and Health and Safety – What and Where is the Responsibility?  

Many of our customers are aware that when we work with them to amend / replace their employer engagement health and safety paperwork we stress the importance of ensuring that the supporting management system is in place around it, as well as recognising the role of partners and subcontractors who benefit from the changes and updates. Alternatively they may reduce the effectiveness of your system by holding on to an out of date process or using a system different to yours!

What If!………….

The coming weeks and months will see us track a court case where a training provider will stand alongside an employer and his supervisor, charged over the death of 16 yr old apprentice. Nothing we will say, nothing that happens in court and no outcome will bring the boy back!

He is not the first apprentice or learner to die in the workplace and won’t be the last. What he is is the first one for many a year that will get providers thinking ‘what if’.

If you are  a Director, Chairman, Principal or Chief Executive ask yourself ‘ What if I was the person who was sitting in the office when the court bailiff appeared summonsing me immediately to appear at the magistrates court because I chose not to attend. Despite being investigated by the police and HSE?

ABC Training  (not the real company name!) is an independent provider employing 25 people. Its background is in health and social care, but other than this area they deliver management, business admin, customer care qualification along with related essential skills etc. All their programmes are delivered to employed status learners. They do not have  a direct contract with the SFA or the Welsh Government. They derive their funding from 2 contracts with 2 seperate ‘lead providers’ in Wales and 3 contracts with 3 separate ‘lead providers’ or ‘primes’ in England. The  3  English contracts include  ‘ a provider group or network’  and 2 individual providers.  Few learners are under 18, none are under 16 all are apprentices.

Evidence – general reflection.
The evidence to support this case study is derived from a visit to the provider to audit the business by DTD Training Ltd. DTD Training has a long association with the business which results from the Welsh Assembly Governments  Health and Safety Code of Practice which determined that all lead providers should audit their sub-contract provision. Unfavourable audits several years ago led ABC Training to engage the services of DTD Training to up-skill the team, identify deficiencies against the Code of Practice, interpret the requirements of lead provider action plans and generally improve t

Just 14 years ago an unprecedented number of learners lost their lives in workplaces whilst on a work placement or benefiting from funded training whilst employed status. Schools, colleges and independent providers were, as a result of the LSC’s new approach, offered a braces and belt approach to the ‘lessons learned’ from those accidents and entered a new era of arrangements and requirements targeted at employer health and safety vetting and monitoring processes.

As well intentioned as this was, and effective through its approach to reducing workplace deaths, it started a process whereby providers took their eye off the ball with regard to what their role responsibility was and still is –

The last year has seen many providers across the UK look at the changes brought in 12 months ago and consider, and make changes to their procedures and arrangements. Some of you may remember the seminar we delivered in Exeter last September outlining the changes and the importance to your business operations. There are however many providers who have done very little to change and more worryingly this represents the situation they have been in since 2011 when the SFA withdrew their contractual health and safety requirements on providers.

A recent case in Sunderland saw a marine engineering company prosecuted for the death of a 19 year old apprentice who lost his life at work 4 years into his apprenticeship. The investigation and court case showed a distinct absence of safe systems of work including risk assessments and adequate supervision of the learner. There is no evidence from the reports that the provider responsible for the learner was at fault in anyway.