When while it was a bad two weeks for the council, it was far worse for the casualties of the accidents they caused
What happened?
A 9 year-old boy was playing on a climbing frame at his Suffolk primary school when he fell 5 feet and landed on concrete slabs below, in October 2009. He suffered a fractured skull with a bleed on the brain and was temporarily blinded. He was unable to return to school for ten weeks and was not able to play contact sport for six months.
The HSE investigated and learned that Suffolk County Council, which operates the school, had failed to provide the school with guidance on where play equipment should be placed, and had not installed an impact-absorbing surface to protect children in the event of a fall.
Less than two weeks later, at a high school also operated by the same county council, an IT technician fell more than 20 feet while attempting to remove a screen at the back of a stage following a theatre production. He was standing inside a basket at the top of a temporary aluminium platform, called a tallescope, while it was being pushed by a colleague. The platform had outriggers to stabilise it but these were not being used, as staff had not been trained in their operation.
The tallescope is not designed to carry a person while it is being moved, so it became unstable and overturned, causing him to fall to the ground. He needed a steel plate and nine metal pins inserted into the shattered bone in his arm and was off work for five months owing to his injuries.
The HSE inspector said: “It is very disappointing to see a major employer like the county council repeatedly fall short of its legal obligations to protect its workers and pupils.
“These cases show the need for all organisations to ensure that they understand the risks in their business and take sufficient steps to manage and monitor them.”
Legal Outcome
In the January 2012 court case, Suffolk County Council pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974 in relation to the incident at the primary school. It was fined £14,000.
For the incident at the high school the county council pleaded guilty to s2(1) of the HSWA 1974 and also s3(1) of the same Act, as pupils were also found to be using the tallescope without being trained. It was fined a total of £14,000 for both breaches.
What can we learn from what happened?
Not a good couple of weeks for this county council, and there was worse to come when they were prosecuted in relation to use of equipment by council employees (see Vibration case study this month).
Source of Information
SHP Online