Working at Height Stakeholders Meet to Launch No Falls Charter

THE ALL PARTY Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Working at Height met with stakeholders virtually on 12 July 2021 to discuss a future No Falls Charter from the No Falls Foundation (NFF).

Hosted by Alison Thewliss MP, at the virtual meeting, the No Falls Foundation said that training and education can help prevent the huge personal and business costs stemming from falls from height.

Widespread Problem

Falls from height are a widespread problem, as NFF Chair, Peter Bennet OBE, pointed out. There are 10 million workers carrying out some form of work at height in the UK. Each day, 99 of them have a fall and it remains the biggest killer of construction workers.

Reasons why falls keep happening include competing health and safety priorities. There are also multiple sources of guidance for contractors. For clients it can be difficult to verify good height safety practices. Lastly, there’s no forum to learn from falls or near misses.

No Falls Charter

In its Inquiry Report published in February 2019, called Staying Alive, the APPG identified the need for an independent body to report near misses and non-RIDDOR accidents to, so that they can be researched and learned from.

To help achieve this, the No Falls Foundation is planning to launch a No Falls Charter in 2022. It will be a standardised action plan for businesses to bring together good height safety practices, standards, polices and regulations into one document.

It will also offer a forum for reporting falls, where they can be discussed to extrapolate learning points to prevent falls in future.

Peter Bennet said “We don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge before us. We want to target first the construction industry and that means all businesses across construction, before rolling out the Charter to other industries.”

Working at Height Stakeholders

The NFF is currently in the process of consulting with industry to ensure the Charter is realistic and achievable. The NFF wants to set up a drafting panel and a review panel formed from industry experts.

NFF expects companies signing up to the Charter to have proper risk assessments, informed equipment selection, proper training and to report all work at height accidents and near misses.

It would also like RIDDOR reporting to be made easier to get more consistent data on working at height falls and near misses.

It is expected that signing up to the No Falls Charter will become a badge of quality and expertise.

The NFF discussed educating homeowners and small businesses when appointing those working at height, in response to a question from NFRC’s Gary Walpole, and whether insurance companies might offer discounts for those signing the Charter.

Peter Bennett concluded: “I believe this will be a game changer in terms of preventing falls from height. It is important that we have industry involvement in making the Charter a success.”