The latest ONS Construction Sector statistics confirm the trend that over 96% of construction firms in Great Britain employ less than 14 people.

 

If one takes it a step further, just under 82% of construction firms employ less than the minimum number of staff that require them to have a written health and safety policy. The lack of mandating evidence to support the firm is managing the welfare of its employees, does not engender any confidence they will be concerned to train their staff on building safety matters that always comes with a higher operating cost to fulfill.

The construction sector is driven by a subcontracting business model that continues to priorities cost over quality, and it is unlikely to change. Consequently, the economic and competitive constraints in the UK market place serve to make it likely most small firms cannot afford to invest in training its staff.

Looking at the stats another way, firms that employ over 100 staff, account for 15% of the total GB construction force. These firms, and by extension their 329,000 employees, are far more likely to operate under an effective safe-operating system. They will no doubt represent the more competent work force that will be most receptive to the change management initiatives introduced by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) as seeking to drive up compliance with the new building safety standards introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022.

That leaves some 300,000 workers who work for firms that employ between 14 and 79 staff, where one can reasonably assume they will receive an adequate safety-orientated training in the larger firms, but less so as the firms get smaller.

The Building Safety Act already includes provisions that require all construction workers to comply with the highest building safety standards. The Regulator's expectations on delivering that outcome has to be tempered by the difficulties of engaging with the 1.23 million workers who are often resistant to change, distrustful of authority, and incredibly hard to engage with at the best of times.

An obvious solution is to mandate the requirement that every construction workers must carry an enhanced variation of the existing CSCS card, underlined by a minimum level of competency training to secure it. Continuing to rely upon a voluntary system will solve nothing.