Are more regulations required for working at height?

Industry statistics continue to feature the high number of accidents resulting from working at height activities. In spite of the best efforts of the regulators and those involved in the industry, there has been no indication of an improving trend. According to a recent SafeWork Australia report, over the 10-year period from 2003 to 2012, 274 workers died following falls from a height, which amounted to 11% of all worker fatalities.

In 2012, fatalities from falling from heights accounted for 13% or 29 workers’ deaths - two of these deaths were the result of a fall from buildings under construction or demolition and eight were the result of falls from a roof. While the construction industry accounted for one-third of fall-related fatalities in the last four years, another third of the workers fell to their death from a ladder.

The Working at Height Association (WAHA) members witness that the ‘big end of town’ in the ‘construction industry’ (building designers, major construction contractors and their subcontractors) is extremely active in its height safety management roles - all the way from risk analysis, driving the hierarchy of control to eliminate or minimise that risk and defining/ implementing appropriate safe working methods.

The ‘design and construct’ phase of new buildings is supported through the compliance with building codes, following appropriate codes of practice and adopting relevant Australian Standards. Worker training and equipment management also remain high on the agenda on new construction work. It has to be acknowledged that much of this activity - while now almost automatic in the design and construction industries - was originally driven by the focus from the regulators on height safety issues.

However, while WAHA applauds and continues to work to support this activity in the construction area, the association has become increasingly concerned about the lack of safety focus directed at the building service and maintenance activities that inevitably follow after the design and construction phase. It may take a few years to design and construct a building but the life of that building is likely to be much, much longer and maintenance and refurbishment activities increase continually over its period of use.

The design and construction phase usually includes the installation of equipment to be used to support the ongoing ‘facility management’ operations when the building is in use - accessing and servicing roof-mounted equipment and maintaining building windows and facades. However, there are no building codes, codes of practice (COP) or Australian Standards covering the design, installation and commissioning of this equipment. It is these areas that are currently causing WAHA greatest concern.

Much of this roof access and working at height safety equipment is never used during the construction phase and is considered just another cost associated with the building. As such, this work is subjected to the cost constraints applied to the whole project and often a minimalistic approach is adopted - passing any operational safety issues on to the building owner.

When the building is commissioned and passed over to the owner, the owner - or their appointed facility manager - takes on the responsibility for the functionality and of the building systems and the safe procedures for carrying out that work. This is where risk assessments of the work to be undertaken can expose deficiencies in the equipment installed - and in some cases, the complete lack of systems.

Most height safety systems are subject to the requirement of documented annual inspection and recertification by a competent person. It is in this area of inspection prior to recertification that WAHA members have - for some time - been reporting increasing numbers of non-compliant installations at the time of inspection.

In response to these reports, four larger members of the Installer Category within WAHA collated equipment inspection data over a three-month period with the following results from 34 new buildings (completed and occupied in the last 12 to 24 months) and 119 existing buildings (fitted with retrofitted equipment).

Item no.	Surveyed no.	Passed	% Fail
Anchor points	3245	2260	31%
Horizontal static lines	119	41	65%
Vertical static lines	14	2	86%
Fixed ladders	233	14	94%
System layout	86	4	95%

Note: While the data was not independently audited, it does indicate the existence of a systemic problem.

All the available industry data was presented to a specially convened seminar at last year’s Sydney Safety Show where the ‘fall crisis’ subject received significant amount of interest from the 190 attendees at the seminar.

Since then, the association has made direct representations to all state and territory WorkCover authorities providing them with the industry data. The association has subsequently presented the detailed information along with supporting photographic evidence of the issues to a number of authorities as well as to HWSA (Heads Of Workplace Safety Authorities).

The initial reaction from the regulators and the authorities was that industry had no stomach for more regulation and that, in fact, there were strong moves towards deregulation. Additionally, it was generally agreed by both parties that the focus of the regulators and authorities was mostly on the ‘construction’ industry and not on the aftermarket.

Unfortunately, deaths from falls from height happen in both segments - and therefore need to be addressed in both segments.

The Installer Category of WAHA is currently progressing well with the development of an industry-based code of practice covering the design, installation and testing of new installations - both for new buildings and for retrofit applications - as well as the inspection, testing and recertification of existing installations. The association is looking towards Safe Work Australia to support the development of this COP and to support its adoption in the field.

The association would also like the regulators to address the requirement for a high-risk licence for those that have to install, test, inspect or recertify working at height installed systems.

WAHA is also offering to develop briefing data sheets and appropriate training programs to assist WorkCover in training inspectors to identify and address unacceptable installations.

However, in the middle of all this activity are those that have to manage facilities - building owners and facility managers. Many of the installations they are working with currently carry meaningless ‘certification’ and, as the WAHA survey showed, many are well below the industry-based standard. Processes have to be introduced whereby the facility manager can be certain that the equipment that has been installed is correct for the work to be undertaken. They also have to be able see that it has been inspected and certified to the appropriate standard by a person in some way registered as competent to do so. Currently there is no such methodology - and that presents an ever-increasing risk.

The association is expecting feedback from HWSA in mid-February and will report on those outcomes accordingly.