Update on enforcement notices issued

12 April 2019

The Health and Safety Inspectorate is publishing the details of prohibition and improvement notices that have been issued for the first 3 months of the year rather than waiting the usual 6 months. 

This is due to serious concern within the Inspectorate that 12 Prohibition Notices, requiring work to be stopped immediately, were served during this period due to failures to properly plan and control work at height. 

To illustrate that the situations inspectors are finding on sites are serious and not trivial we are taking the unusual steps of releasing some photographs of these uncontrolled risks to illustrate why notices were served.

Notices served January to March 2019

Prohibition Notices

Twelve immediate Prohibition Notices were served:

• six resulting from poorly planned construction work at height leading to a risk of falls from unprotected edges:

Figure 1  Unprotected edges leading to risk of falls

• three relating to unsafe access onto and around a construction site, including areas where work at height was taking place:

Figure 2  Unsafe access to work at height

• one relating to a risk of falls from a poorly maintained scaffold on a construction site
• one relating to inappropriate use of a tower scaffold leading to unsafe work at height

Figure 3  Inappropriate use of a tower scaffold

• one relating to unsafe access onto and around a construction resulting from a risk of falls through open joists

Improvement Notices

Six Improvement Notices were also served, details on the link below.

Enforcement notices issued