As a tech IOSH general H & S practitioner with 12 years experience with Nebosh GC & Dip1, I am seeking a practical view and comments on the level of competence (experience & qualifications) expected for carrying out construction site inspections. I suspect the NEBOSH Construction Certificate would help & may be the CITB site managers safety training course? However, I am being guided toward using a construction audit document as an aide memoir, but have reservations, so hence my query to all those of you engaged in construction, but particularly from a legal perspective. My employer is a construction specialist but I have had no specific training, only a supervised site visit to get a feel for the work.

Hi, In a former role, over a number of years, I carried out construction site inspections alongside our building surveyors for my employer, the construction work was carried out by a variety of contractors, my employer was the client. I have NEBOSH Dip 1 & 2 and Construction Cert but I’m not from a construction background. All our contractors were issued with a 100 page document outlining our H&S standards regarding any construction work carried out on our sites, generally I was inspecting to ensure this guidance was being followed, however I did have authority from the Chief Exec to stop any work which I considered immediately dangerous to the life of the operatives or public. Rather than tell the contractors exactly how they should work, they being hopefully the experts in their field and CHAS accredited, I would point out hazards on site that I didn’t think were adequately controlled and ask them how they intended to reduce the risk, what changes would they make to do this. But with so many sites and work going on you couldn’t obviously be everywhere and in my experience the H&S performance of a site, in addition to client H&S advisor visits, very much depended upon the site foreman. Good luck. Regards Steve

Hi, Just to clarify my previous post our requirements in terms of H&S were more stringent than the legal minimum and any grey areas we always erred on the side caution - if the contractor didn't like that well they didn't work for us. Regards Steve

Hi, The requirements of the law as the minimum level of achievement came from the last H&S policy statement that I wrote for a UK multinational company via the RoSPA Qsa H&S audit and HSG65, 10 years ago now and the best company I ever worked for in every respect, sadly like most UK manufacturing no longer in existence. Regards Steve

Mr H&S you appear to have a common sense attitude to health and safety, nice one! I always say "if it looks good it usually is good".

Whenever I see a question like this I begin to get some bad vibes. Competence is not, as I have oft repeated, merely a matter of qualifications and experience - there are a range of factors. I am also uneasy when I see the constant push by employers on essentially Technician grades to undertake some tasks that ought to be undertaken by chartered members. Going into construction cold without early initial competent support from another competent safety professional is a recipe for disaster. I started my construction career under the tutelage of an experienced person and all the little wheezes of managers and operatives were quickly revealed to me. There simply is no replacement for such mentoring. By luck some gain experience and abilities without support but I express that this is a random event and for every successful person via this route there are many failures to achieve full competence. I have seen too many accidents that could have been avoided if competent safety persons had been available - there are no guarantees though in anything with regards to construction. As a little tester the following question is worthwhile thinking about. A group of pipe fitters is using a steel wire of breaking strain of 1 tonne fixed to steel columns 20m apart. The wire is taught and a lifting block weighing 50kg is suspended from this wire. What is the safe load for a lift? Answers Bob

Depends on what its being taught - English perhaps?

Gents It is very easy to audit/ inspect a site against best practice and current legislation, anybody can do that but its what you do about the identified hazards that you find, i.e give suggestions, consultation or advise on solutions and implement them. It is also how you go about that, i.e communication with people. What gives us practitioners bad names on sites is the persons who audit/ inspect sites identify lots of problems and then walk away, nothing gets people more angry and anti H&S Practitioners, (trust me I have been on the other side). What helped me was the experience that I already had, coming from construction since school and people relations (a learning thing), all the qualifictions came later and I was never lead by the hand by another pratitioner around sites with a clipboard and tick sheet (although not a bad idea if you are new to the genre of work). H&S culture has been much easier to implement and get P.C's, S/C's, operatives etc...on your side and take ownership with this attitude, I admit you do get the "but I have been doing it for years like this mate and I have never had an accident" but these are getting far and few between and are old school attitudes that are dying.

"Technician grades are always by definition going to be of lesser competence than chartered members one hopes." (says boblewis). Decision to pursue any membership grade progression (or indeed membership per se) is entirely personal and there can be no defined correlation to individual competence. I believe you are courting controversy here.

Chris The whole point of the question is that this operation using a bridle is so widespread that it has ceased to be questioned by site staff. It is an intinsically unsafe action with no determinable safe working load as it depends entirely on the angle formed at the suspension point and the initial tautness of the wire rope. Unlike your threaded rods where a specification is possible. The point is that it is a matter of competence to recognise something as unsafe even when a question is not posed. Competent construction personnel should have recognised the total lack of safety in this action without an engineers report. It is mirrored in the question of chain angle on 2 and 4 legged chain slings. Angle greater than 90 degrees is a no no. Ron yes I am deliberately courting controversy - I feel it may be the only way to get persons to stop and properly think about their limitations and the necessary means to achieve competency. IOSH has in fact produced some words previously about the differences in work ability for TechIOSH and CMIOSH. The former are not expected to be "procedure setters". But given equal site experience I still have to argue a chartered member should be more competent at a wider range of skills than a TechIOSH. It is personal however at which level of competence one chooses to remain/achieve. Bob