Corporate Manslaughter Act will support safety-conscious access companies

The new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 will support well-managed access companies by punishing those that take unjustifiable risks with people’s safety, said barrister Denis Barry, speaking at the IPAF Summit on 15 April.

The Act went into force on 6 April 2008 and applies across the UK. Under the law, an organisation is guilty of a statutory offence if the way in which it manages or organises its activities causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care to the deceased. A substantial part of the breach must have been in the way activities were managed by senior management.

Barry explained, to the audience of access equipment manufacturers, rental companies and end users, that duty of care is an obligation that organisations have to take reasonable steps to protect people’s safety. These duties exist, for example, in respect of work systems and equipment used by employees, the condition of worksites and other premises occupied by an organisation, and products or services supplied to customers.

Organisations convicted of the offence, said Barry, can receive 1) a fine, with no upper limit to what this can be, 2) a publicity order, which requires an organisation to publicise the fact of its conviction, and 3) a remedial order, which requires the organisation to address the cause of the fatal injury. He urged access companies to review management and operator training procedures, and to ensure that safety systems are in place, as the key question that the Act poses is whether management failure to organise activities properly caused the victim’s death.

The management of thorough examinations of access equipment is a key aspect of this safety culture, a theme addressed by Gil Male, IPAF technical officer and formerly HM principal specialist inspector with the Health and Safety Executive’s Technology Unit.

Male examined inspection and thorough examination practices in Europe, as outlined in the Use of Work Equipment Directive 95/63/EC, and the United States, as defined in the ANSI standards.

Users (employers or self-employed) are responsible for ensuring that access equipment is not used unless they have a current examination report and for arranging for examinations to be carried out by competent persons. Competent persons are responsible for carrying out thorough examinations and for taking appropriate further action where there is serious imminent risk of injury.

Across the European countries and the US, differences exist in the frequency of thorough examinations, for example, 12 months in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands vs. 6 months in the UK and France vs. 3 months plus an annual inspection in the US. Other differences lie in the nature of the examination record (certificate, report, entry in machine safety file or sticker), the required length of time for record keeping, and the type of competent person (government inspectors, second- or third-party inspectors).

Male indicated that IPAF is working with the European Rental Association (ERA) on a statement on thorough examinations which would outline best practice on this subject.

Presentations from the IPAF Summit on the theme of thorough examinations are available here.

The next IPAF Summit will be held on 2 April 2009 in Dublin, Ireland. The Summit is free of charge and open to all upon registration.