Safety Matters

An indication of the seriousness with which the construction industry is now taking safety is given by the Major Contractors Group, who are pledged to employ only fully qualified workforces - those holding Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards - by the end of this year.

The CSCS covers 154 occupations and aims to register every UK construction worker - and ours will be amongst them! As painters and decorators frequently working at heights, we are very aware that falls represent the main cause of injury and death on construction sites.

Proper training is the all-important factor and to this end more and more major construction sites expect operatives using powered access equipment (scissor lifts, cherry pickers and the like) to hold a PAL card awarded by the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) to trained platform operators. Recently, the IPAF has come together with the CSCS in a move that will bring almost 100,000 trained platform operators holding the PAL card within the ambit of the CSCS scheme.