A guide to workplace Safety Controls

In 2020, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) research highlighted that 70% of businesses fear inspections. 

Despite this, the HSE continues to highlight successful health and safety prosecutions on a near-weekly basis.  A significant number of these are due to absent or inadequate Safety Controls.

Hierarchy of Controls

Safety Controls need not be expensive but must be reasonable and proportionate.

The Hierarchy of Controls,  a method of identifying and ranking safeguards to protect workers from hazards, helps employers understand reasonable safety controls, based upon five steps:

• Eliminate. This is the most effective control. If possible, eliminate the hazard.
• Reduce. If elimination isn’t possible, reduce the hazard.
• Prevent/Substitute. Where reduction isn’t possible, try prevention or substitution with a less hazardous solution. You might, for example, take the train instead of the car to reduce the risk of accidents.
• Administrative Control. If that still doesn’t work, put managemental controls into place, e.g. huddles.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This is the least effective control, as it relies on human behaviour, but still helps in safety controls.

Controls in practise

You’ve missed the train. You took the car.  You hit some roadworks.  What steps should the contractor take to implement a Hierarchy of Controls?  

• Eliminate. If they can close the road, it will eliminate the risk of road traffic accidents. However, this may not always be possible, for example, restrictions due to road closure permits, traffic control, etc.
• Reduce. They can consider working during less busy hours for traffic, e.g., at night. This will reduce the risk of road traffic accidents.
• Prevent/Substitute. The contractor may also consider putting barriers, cones, and lane closures in place to prevent contact with road traffic in the area of work.
• Administrative Controls. A safety briefing before shift, considering road traffic, can continuously monitor work activity for road safety.
• PPE. Workers may also wear high visibility (Hi-Vis) clothing to increase their visibility to drivers.

Remember,it is not necessary for the contractor to put all or just one control into place. If closing the road is not possible, all four other measures are still relevant. These are reasonable measures for road construction purposes.

Inspection fear

Are you still in that 70% of businesses?

Remember: the primary purpose of HSE is to make workplaces safe, reducing the risk of prosecutions. The HSE puts guidelines in place to make workplaces safe. Your business should use the guidelines and implement reasonable controls to make the workplace safe.

Next steps

• Consider your workplace now.  Do they have reasonable safety control measures?
• Determine which controls are most effective and reasonable.
• If you are not sure, we can help you with that…

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