Systemic Safety Alert
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職業安全及健康部 Occupational Safety and Health Branch 勞工處 Labour Department |
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Systemic Safety Alert
While contractors/employers are responsible for ensuring the safety and health of their workers/ employees at work, you, as a Registered Safety Officer (RSO) and/or a Registered Safety Auditor (RSA), have the statutory duties under the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Officers and Safety Supervisors) Regulations, and/or the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management) Regulation to advise your employers/clients to fulfill their safety responsibilities and render the necessary assistance. In particular, in exercising your statutory functions, you are reminded to take into full account the following six fundamental safety management principles :
- Risk assessments, method statements, systems of work and the associated hazard control measures should be task-specific, having due regard to the specific nature, location, job methods and plant/equipment to be used in carrying out the task in question;
- The hierarchy of hazard control should be observed : priority should be accorded to avoid exposing workers to potential hazard through removal of its source (e.g. a ban on the use of hazardous substances) or engineering measures (e.g. adopting a safer work/production process), deployment of hazard mitigation measures, with the use of personal protective equipment being the last resort;
- A robust checking system should be developed and implemented to ensure that “competent persons” and other personnel designated by the employer are genuinely performing their functions of ensuring safety of high-risk plant and work processes;
- An effective inspection system should be developed and implemented to proactively detect violations of safety requirements, to timely report irregularities to the employer, and to promptly rectify irregularities;
- An effective coordination/ communication system among the principal contractor, sub-contractors, different levels of site management/ supervision personnel and workers should be established and maintained to ensure clear understanding of potential work hazards, in-house safety rules, hazard control programmes and delineation of safety responsibilities; and
- Safety training and information provided to workers and supervisory personnel should be tailor-made, having due regard to the specific nature, location, job methods and plant/equipment to be used in carrying out the task in question, as well as the languages of the workers concerned (e.g. ethnic minorities).