Report: Health And Safety, Environmental And Socio-Political Hazards In Construction Project

Background Information

This report examines the health and safety issues at a construction site. The report also focuses on the environment issues that may externally affect the social wellbeing of people of Godric’s Hollow. This helps to determine and identify ways in which risks that may result from the construction may be managed and addressed to avoid damages, harm, death and other hazardous occurrences that may result from undertaking the project.

Background Information

Health and safety as defined in English dictionary are the regulations and procedures that are followed in a workplace, for example, a public environment and in this case, the construction site to prevent the occurrence of an incident or an accident.  Health and safety are the most important issue to be addressed in this report. This is because the construction of the houses touches on health and safety, as well as the aggregate surrounding that may affect the social and cultural forces which shape the life of the people. Socio- political context in this report affects to some degree the performance of projects ((Vassie, 2011).

The hazards in construction stages are explained in detail and their control measures. This is to give guidelines to the contractor on health and safety precautions of the existing and potential hazards. Incase risks occur, appropriate management systems should be used which should be chosen in a match of the identified hazards; such as the principal risks.

Critical analysis on the possibility of these hazards management system is addressed. This is to ensure that there is effective management of the existing and potential risks in the workplace.

Apart from the management and controlling the occurrence of a risk, a company should ensure that it abides by the local authorities regulations. This is enhanced by making sure that there are proper designs and framework on how to undertake the project. These designs, plans, and frameworks should always have the authority approval to ensure working within the recommended local authority framework (Friend and Kohn, 2007).

According to Concept design report, 2013 the following are the stages of a proposed construction project 🙁 refer diagram 3)

1. Initial feasibility. This involves preparation of a feasibility study and evaluation of options to ensure customers decide whether to go on with the project or not. This assists a contractor to identify customer needs and potential constraints on development.
2. This is where the customer’s first necessities statement is developed regarding the briefing of the design and essential requirements. Constraints are also checked. Procurement method, procedures, and administrative arrangement are done at this stage.
3. Preparation of a Technical design. This is a stage where professional drawings are prepared and sketched. This enhances coordination of components and essentials of the project, information for legal standards and construction safety.
4. Planning application. It is a stage which involves additional data preparation for construction. This information is needed for the building contract. The production information is also prepared to detail to enable tenders to be acquired.
5. Building regulation approval. It is a stage which involves an application for statutory approvals.
6. Construction drawings and specification of works. In this phase, the construction plan is documented, and then the approval is submitted to the customer.
7. Tendering and contractors. It is a stage where possible contractors are identified and evaluated. Immediately the contractor is identified, preparations to assign the construction site is done.
8. The construction drawings and specifications of works are implemented at this stage.

In respect to health and Safety, Socio- political and environment aspect, the following is a discussion of critical analysis on the choice of a suitable hazard identification system.(refer diagram 2)

According to (Friend and Kohn, 2007). Hazard identification is the procedure of scrutinizing every workplace and work activity to identify situations; harm, death, damage, environment or socio well- being of the people in the workplace. The importance of identifying hazards in a construction site is to manage the workplace successfully. Hazard identification system should thus be able to determine the risks under the various time frame as follows:

1. When no hazard identification has been made before.
2. If there is an identified risk,
3. If a change in the site has changed the hazard. For example the change in equipment or environment.
4. When responding to a site incident even if an injury has not occurred.

Stages of a proposed construction project

According to hazards identification publication (Monash, 2007), Hazards are likely to be found in the following:

1. Physical work environment, equipment, and materials.
2. Work tasks and how they are performed.
3. Work design and management.

To identify hazards (refer diagram 4), hazard identification system should:

1. Examine and check whether past incidents and accidents would reoccur.
2. Discuss with the workers in the site to determine what they think are safety precautions in the construction.
3. Examine the workplace or the whole construction site in this case.
4. Examine the social well- being of the people and the political instability risks and the information documented for use in a later date.
5. Safely keep equipment and safety data sheets information for evaluation and determination of security precautions.

Table 1.0

The following are hazards identified in each project stages and their mitigating actions:

Project Stage	Risks Associated	Mitigating Actions
1.	Socio-political and legal hazards	Seeking an alternative site or seeking a strong legal team when legal issues arise.
2.	Cost Overruns	Conducting many types of research to establish prices of various materials and equipment.
3.	Workforce Hazards	Attract extremely skilled individuals.
4.	Delay hazards for planning application by the involved individuals.	Ensure provision of further information for construction is made in time by the competent workforce.
5.	Delays These are usually hazards associated with the delays by government agencies in approving the building and construction regulations.	Ensure designs are within standards that are specified by the government.
6.	Cost Overrides hazards as a result of incomplete drawings and specifications.	Working to detail on each specification. This saves costs on expert assistance and overall construction time.
7.	Project quality hazards.	A quality job is done with minimum supervision.
8.	Health and safety hazards These includes accidents during the actual construction.	Ensuring that standard and safety measures for each identified risk are taken.

Source (Author)

According to a designed report (Blair, 2009), the role of actually applying a hazard management system is the efficient management and identification of the hazards and picking the best control measure. Moreover, consistent trying and maintaining of these controls is significant in ensuring they are effective.

The following are the management systems and how they can be used in risk management.

1. Principal Hazard Management Plan

In this plan, there is the identification of significant dangers. Main hazards have the capability of causing an incident or an accident with negative results (Bailey, 2013). Use of this procedure defines the process, assess the risk, risk control measure and the reason for acquiring or rejecting a control measure. If the main hazards are not there on a site, this plan is usually dismissed in that case.

This system enables the contractor to establish the necessary mitigation action. The plan enables the risk manager to document risks to health and safety, environmental and socio- political well- being of a person resulting from major hazards which should be isolated or eliminated.

1. Principal Control Plan.

This is a system where control measures are determined to control risks associated with many hazards. These hazards are major risks with overriding application to the whole site.

According to occupational Health and safety, (Haviland, Burns and Gray, 2012), the control needed are those relating to mechanical and electrical engineering, survey, environmental, emergency, and socio- political.

The plan is used in the management of hazards by covering the life of equipment, worker practices, procedures and processes to control the already identified risks. Control measures are also developed regarding health and safety of workers (Mendeloff, 2012).

1. Trigger Action Response Plan

This plan is used for primary hazards incorporated in the main hazard management plans and can be monitored for any situations that may result in an accident or incident occurring. This is a system which identifies hazards in their levels as they range from most abnormal to normal. The system should not be used where there are physical barriers that are strong to control principal hazards such as mechanical or environmental hazards (Huang, Y. and Courtney, 2015).

Organizations always need to have information on how the management system used in the identification of hazards work efficiently according to the initial design. The management systems used as tools for managing hazards have various effects on organization performance. The organizational activities usually measure the organization performance through auditing of the workplace (Storbacka, 2011). These effects may be internal or external effects. Some of the effects in each management systems include the followings:

Suitable hazard identification system

Delays while identifying the principal hazards gives adverse effects. This effect may result to need for redesigning the whole management system (Klick, 2012). It also calls for changing or amending any parts of the management system regarding the health and safety precautions.

An organization should encourage workers to continue to demonstrate improvements in those key hazard indicators so that they can normally show improvements on risk control. This brings improvement in their performance in the organization. Through identification of the principal hazards, organizational performance is affected because there is a need for a continuous improvement of the system as well the system efficiency (Storbacka, 2011)

Principal Control Plan is a system that can also affect the organizational performance in the following ways:

It requires technical control measures from engineers ranging from mechanical to electrical. This may result to cost overrides in an organization while trying to attract the highly skilled experts in the project (Podgorski, 2010).

As a result of trying to cover the practices within the construction site, this might lead to delays and cost overruns in the site. In this system, hazard and risk evaluation cause a large use of resources (Podgorski, 2010).

Evaluation and the accomplishment of objectives and plans in this specific system may interfere with the socio- wellbeing of employees working in an organization. The data embedded in the analysis of both the instant and fundamental causes of environmental risks, socio- political matters and health and safety matters are some of the common trends and common features in this principal control plan that affects the performance in an organization. These signals are continuous with the growth of health and safety precautions.

The TARPs system is used for primary hazards and requires continuous monitoring for situations that may result in an incident or accident requires a lot of time that usually affects the performance in an organization. This system may have an impact on a fast performance of the activities because it has the tendency of identifying hazards in their detailed levels ranging from normal to abnormal. This ends up with a lot of controls and actions to be undertaken in the process.

The following conclusions are made regarding these effects of management system:

There should be system review plans that should be either monthly or annually. The plans should be carried out in departments, individuals and at each level of activity to avoid too many effects of the system in the project (Foley, 2014).

Table 1.0

If the evaluation and monitoring of the project identify a little performance in the project, fast and efficient remedies should be carried out by the concerned supervisors and the managers. The management system should also enhance significant attachment of safety and health, socio- political as well as the environment on how the project runs. There should be further monitoring of the company’s safety and health performances to evaluate whether there is a negative or positive response (Townley, Cooper and Oakes, 2003)

According to the Integrated Management special interest group (Silversmith, 2007), management systems have distinct opportunities and matters but have a great degree of relationships. Therefore, there can be a possible integration of the management system. This management system identifies hazards in a company. All this relates to the organization activities which may be affected in one way or another.

These management systems can also integrate to enhance a continuous, uniform monitoring and development of projects in an organization. This may result in the efficient performance of organization and improvement in its operations. Far from assessing of risks, management system can take the direction of;

• Identifying the risks that need to be talked about in an organization,
• Determining how the direction and the levels in which the performance should be,
• Plan on various needs that require attention in an organization,
• Organize what is happening in an organization, equip the workers with necessary information about health and safety and socio- the wellbeing of themselves.

Integration of the management system gives a fantastic advice and direction on better practices in the health and safety management. If the health and safety risks are not controlled in a good combination of the management system, these may result in a great loss in the organization workforce. A combination of the management system encourages efficient controls by managing health and safety and environmental matters thoroughly with the idea of managing the whole organization. This is important because several significant and relevant issues related workers involvement and some aspects relating to health and safety are addressed in detail (Vassie, 2001).

Focusing on the normal discussion process of hazard management system identification, development, and integration, this is subject to combining all the plans to successfully achieve a reasonable model on which to base an organized approach to the management of health and safety, environment and socio- wellbeing within a whole organization environment. This does not give proper direction and guidance on how to incorporate relatively uncommon sides of health and safety precautions as well as those of environment issues. This may lead to adverse effects on the performance of the work in an organization (Dalling, 2010).

The main pieces of legislation according to legislative requirements and planning approval process (Kaplan, 2009) are as follows:

1. Plan authority. This is a legislation where the authority examines, establish, plan and manage the infrastructure. It takes the necessary actions to create the construction of infrastructure before entering into contracts, disposal of possessions and before contractor appointments. This is relevant in ensuring that health and safety precautions, as well as the environment risk, are minimized. This is enhanced by abiding by the legalities of the authority.
2. Plan framework. This is legislation that gives uncertain timeframes. It is important since it provides an impact in the blueprint. If construction is for example in one way or another polluting the environment, this legislation will ensure there is a limitation of time in which the development will take place. This helps to avoid extreme damage or exceeding the break point in which damage can occur. It is also relevant because it matches with authorities’ plan of giving priority to a country’s infrastructure program
3. Property Acquisition and Protection. This where authority seeks the basis under which the assets were acquired and authority approval considered. This is relevant regarding avoiding other activities that may result in environment interference or rather causing wrangles between the owners of the property and other stakeholders.

There is an existing relationship between risk management and business continuity. This relationship involves adopting an enterprise risk management model. The model recognizes all environmental, socio- political, market, legal, strategic and financial threats that would affect the business continuity (Norton, 2007). This model gives a framework that controls risks in an organization as it develops its opportunities and focuses on its goals (Hesparo, 2007). The model identifies and evaluates answers to the circumstances. Business continuity management and risk management should be carefully combined to achieve safe operations in case of an occurrence.

Management systems and their use in managing hazards

Risk management enhances reduction of threats caused by the adverse events. It must conquer disruptions at the operational level. Defectiveness in a business organization is inherited, thus to improve business continuity, risk management is essential to minimize threats. If risk management is not likely, reducing the effect of undesirable results should be done.

For example, suppression of fire minimizes the risks that may be caused by fire damage. Moreover, dismissed equipment will prevent the breakdown of a machine from interrupting the operations of an organization. Risk management analysis past incidents and accidents and scrutinize known hazards such as floods, earthquake, explosions or even terrorism (Ruder, 2012).

Business continuity can be incorporated into overall project risk management strategy. This is done by knowing that not every incident and accident is preventable (Hartwig, 2008). This goes in line with reducing the impact of an occurrence. Once an effect is reduced and a hazard occurs, there will always be room for restoration, and the normal operations of the organization resume. 

Conclusion and Recommendations

According to this report on matters relating to health and safety, environment and socio- political, we can draw several conclusions. Regarding the identified proposed project stages, proper preparation is essential regarding construction drawings, specifications, tendering and contracting. The initial stage of carrying out a feasibility study is key.

Appropriate identification system should be used to determine the relevant management system. This will ensure health and safety and provide proper control measures. The management system can affect the work performance in an organization either positively or negatively. Organizations should thus focus on achievements rather than flaws. Organizations should consider integrating management systems even if they have different prospects to maintain low levels of occurrence of risks. Efficient management of the risks will always enhance business continuity.

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