Karrick Construction: programme pressure, an unhanded scaffold and a suspected asbestos board

Weigh the factors, not the seniority

The site manager should separate the schedule argument from the safety argument. 'The scaffolders have never let us down' is evidence about past behaviour, not about whether this scaffold is complete: ties, guardrails, toe boards, access ladders, loading arrangements and the handover tag are all unknown until someone competent inspects and signs it. An unhanded-over scaffold is, by definition, a structure nobody has confirmed is fit for use.

Factors to weigh:

• Severity and likelihood: falls from height are the sector's main killer; a partial scaffold can also fail structurally under load.
• Role and duty: as principal contractor, Karrick must plan, manage and monitor the work and ensure a suitable system for coordination between contractors. Opening a front the scaffold contractor has not released breaks the interface the handover exists to protect.
• Precedent: the precedent set by complying is that programme pressure overrides handover. The two operatives already working from the top step of a podium ladder suggest the boundary is drifting.

Action

1. Decline to open the front, in writing, with reasons - a short email to the PM copied to the construction director.
2. Offer a workable alternative: resequence dry-lining into areas already handed over, or ask the scaffold contractor to complete and hand over a defined section today, and get the inspection tag in place before anyone loads it.
3. Record the instruction and the decision in the site diary, and raise the schedule pressure at the next progress meeting as a change requiring re-planning and a revised risk assessment - not as an individual's stubbornness.
4. Reinforce the same standard on the podium ladders: these are the visible symptom that access equipment is short or that nobody is challenging shortcuts.

If the PM overrides the site manager, escalate - that is precisely what the principal contractor's director-level accountability is for.

Immediate: presume it contains asbestos

• Stop work in the immediate vicinity; do not cut, break, sweep, vacuum with a domestic machine, or bag the board into general waste. Do not let anyone take a sample casually.
• Cordon and sign the area, keep people out, and prevent draughts or movement that could spread fibres; do not dry-sweep or use compressed air.
• Move the operatives working 20 metres away - 'nearby' is not a safe distance if the riser is on the same floor and the material may be friable. Relocate them until the area has been assessed, and log who was present and for how long.
• Check the asbestos register and the refurbishment and demolition survey for that riser. If the survey exists and missed it, that is a significant finding about survey scope and access.
• Arrange sampling and assessment by a competent person; if removal is needed and the material is not effectively bonded or is damaged, use a licensed contractor with the correct notification and enclosure.
• Brief the workforce honestly - including in Romanian - on what was found, why the area is closed, and what to do if they find similar material.

What it says about planning

A refurbishment of a 1970s building should not produce surprises of this kind. The presence of an unrecorded suspect material at a riser the survey could not fully access indicates that the refurbishment and demolition survey was incomplete, or that its limitations were not translated into a work restriction (for example, 'no intrusive work in risers until surveyed').

The corrective action is procedural: a survey-gap register, a permit or authorisation step before any intrusive work in areas the survey could not access, and a management-of-change step whenever scope moves into unsurveyed fabric. The joiner did the right thing - make sure that is said publicly, so the next person reports rather than carries on cutting.

What the arrangements actually deliver

A 12-minute video with no comprehension check, no translation and 40% of the workforce speaking Romanian as a first language is not an induction - it is a record that someone sat in a cabin. It cannot demonstrate that a worker knows the site rules, the escape routes, the permit systems, who to report to, or the specific risks of their task. Where understanding is not tested, the site has no evidence and no way of knowing who is at risk.

The consequences are already visible: two operatives using the top step of a podium ladder, no toolbox talk for three weeks, and a subcontractor workforce that is likely to nod rather than ask. Add programme pressure and a nine-day slip, and you have the conditions in which people guess.

Recommendations

• Replace the video-only induction with a short face-to-face session delivered in Romanian and English (or with an interpreter), covering site-specific hazards, permits, reporting routes, first aid and the right to stop work. Test understanding by question or short practical demonstration, not signature.
• Issue a pictorial card with key rules and the names and numbers of supervisors, so understanding does not depend on a remembered briefing.
• Make induction completion a gate on the access turnstile/card system - no card, no work - for agency and subcontract staff alike.
• Restart daily or task-based briefings led by supervisors, with a record of attendance and content; the three-week gap in toolbox talks should be treated as a performance failure with a named owner.
• Address the ladder behaviour directly: check access equipment availability, retrain and supervise, and ask why the operatives chose the top step (no steps available? time pressure? nobody checks?).

Communicating safety information in a language people understand is a legal expectation, not a courtesy; a worker who cannot understand the induction cannot be said to have been trained.