There will by now be few farmers unaware of their duties in respect to the health and safety of their farm workers. There have been all too many cases in recent years of farm workers being killed or seriously injured and their employer subsequently being prosecuted for health and safety breaches. Only last week a farmer was fined £100,000 after a worker was crushed to death by a reversing trailer on a Lincolnshire farm.
However some may be unaware of their duties under the Health and Safety legislation when using contractors, perhaps believing that in such scenarios their responsibilities will be delegated to the contractor.
Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 places a duty on employers and the self-employed to conduct their undertakings in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons other than themselves or their employees are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.
For Section 3 to apply there must be a duty-holder – either an employer or a self-employed person (not a private individual), there must be a risk to the health or safety of a person who is not the employee of the duty holder and that risk must arise from the conduct of the duty holder’s undertaking, (an ‘undertaking’ being an ‘enterprise’ or ‘business’). Whether contract work is part of the conduct of the business can be difficult to determine, although case law indicates that whether the duty-holder can exercise control over both how the contract work is done and where it is done is very important.
The potential impact of Section 3 is illustrated in a recent case where a roofing contractor fell to his death through the roof of a cowshed at Rhyd Sais Farm, Talgarreg, near Llandysul. One shed had a sign reading “Danger – Fragile Roof. Use Crawler Boards”, however the contractor had limited reading skills and most likely failed to understand it, instead standing on the unsupported fibre cement sheet roof using a pressure washer and trowels to remove moss, when a section gave way.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said the owners of the farm, the Evans family, had a legal duty to ensure the competence of those undertaking the work, but failed to do so. Their investigation found no evidence of adequate planning for the work and the contractor did not produce any evidence of training, qualifications or expertise in roof work. The Evans family were fined a total of £20,000 and ordered to pay £15,000 in costs.
The case raises the question of what qualifications the farmer needs to assess in respect to the safety practices of an independent contractor. Chapter 5 of the HSE Farmwise publication which can be downloaded from their website goes through the steps that farmers should take when selecting a contractor to undertake work:
• Assess their competence by talking to them about their experience and skills in the type of work you want done, ask neighbours who have used them about their performance, check for evidence of appropriate certificates of competence.
• Check they have the resources to do the work safely.
• Provide the information they need to carry out a risk assessment on your farm, e.g. where overhead power lines run.
• Check they understand the standards of Health and Safety management you expect of them.
• Agree how you will co-operate and co-ordinate with each other.
Once a contractor is selected, the farmer should discuss the working arrangements with the contractor and agree a ‘safe system of work’, and then monitor the contractor on site to check that this is being adhered to.
Although obvious, one should remember that the authorities will always be investigating after the event, a time when it is very easy to find fault and see what should have been done to prevent an accident. For this reason farmers should exercise caution when instructing contractors to avoid the risk of prosecution, and, although fines cannot be insured against, check their insurance policy in respect to the scope of cover for legal costs in the event of prosecution and any requirements of the policy.
