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FeedsHome: December 2008 / January 2009 › Cover Story › Safe and sound
Safe and sound
11/02/2009 | Channel: Health & Safety, Fleet Management
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act: How can fleet managers protect themselves.
By David Perry
Corporate responsibility – it’s a term that has been on the lips of every business manager and passed around boardroom tables for years now, but what exactly does it entail? In Spring 2008, the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 went into effect and as a result, companies once again are paying close and serious attention to corporate responsibility.
No responsible company or manager deliberately sets out to put their staff in a position where they are likely to suffer or cause harm; nevertheless, according to government figures from 1996-2006, 2721 workers and 4312 members of the pubic were killed in work-related accidents in
the UK.
The Health and Safety Executive believes that the majority of workplace accidents are preventable. The new Act was designed to overcome a defect in the previous law which stated that while it was possible for a company as an entity to be negligent, a conviction for manslaughter required prosecutors to show that a ‘directing mind’ or an identified individual at the top of a company was responsible for a death.
The 2007 Act assesses liability on a wider basis to accommodate very serious management failings across an organisation. It is important to note that the Act does not necessarily lower the level of negligence that must be proved for a corporate manslaughter conviction, nor does it make any changes to the existing law with regards to prosecuting individuals such as the ‘directing mind’. It does, however, make it possible to prosecute an organisation by creating the obligation to a ‘duty of care’. This duty of care relates to duties already in place under the civil law of negligence.
If a death is deemed to fall under the terms of the act, the courts will look at the management systems and practices across the organisation to determine whether an adequate standard of care was applied across the activity. The threshold for conviction is gross negligence, with a substantial part of the failing occurring at the senior management level. In most cases, a jury is allowed to consider the broader attitudes within the organisation towards safety, but management will not be able to argue that they delegated their responsibility. It is important then, that management and the company can demonstrate that they had controls in place and made every effort to protect the worker.
An organisation convicted of the offence can receive an unlimited fine and a publicity order requiring that it publicise the fact of its conviction and some details of the offence. This publicity is to be made in a way decided by the court. This could leave the company’s reputation in ruins and incur massive loss of revenues beyond the initial fine.
So what can fleet managers do to protect themselves? Despite the heavy penalties for businesses, the act should not in itself pose a problem for well run companies. It does, however, show that a commitment to the active management and measurement of the business process is a core ingredient in a well-run and safe business. Companies should look at mobile workforce management solutions to provide the needed tracking and security of mobile workers. Mobile workforce management solutions can monitor and track a field engineers’ activities and ensure that health and safety checks have been carried out prior to work commencing. They also ensure that there is a communication link between the office and the field worker, which provides the ability to control risk and keep in contact, important when engineers are working in hazardous environments.
One area of substantial concern for many businesses is that of the lone worker. A worker attending a job site by himself is at great risk as he has limited contact with the rest of the business. In the event of an accident, the employee has very few options. Therefore, the duty of care to lone workers covers the training that they receive for the jobs that they are assigned, and the back up that is available to them should they get into difficulty.
The timely arrival of backup relies on accurate information on the exact location and circumstances of the lone worker requiring assistance. The employer cannot assume that the worker will be able to remove himself from his situation and call for help. It may be the case that an absence of communication is a telling factor as a worker failing to check in may have been injured, or could be facing a challenging social situation such as a customer confrontation where calling for backup may exacerbate already dangero circumstances.
In order to offer comprehensive lone worker protection and compliance to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, the worker should be issued with a means of communication that includes an ability to accurately locate a worker’s position at all times. The most straightforward approach is to issue the worker with a PDA that contains a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS reporting needs to be linked to a mapping system of sufficient accuracy to make locating the worker simple.
For communication, there are two principal approaches. The first approach requires an action from the worker, which would naturally include the use of a mobile phone, or an application on a PDA (‘smart’ phone), which could be extended to include a panic button that is linked to an embedded software application. When pressed, the panic button would be capable of calling for assistance and relaying a position to those back at base.
The second approach is a passive solution where a timer runs on a software application on the PDA and requires the lone worker to perform an action, such as acknowledge a pop-up window to give a signal that everything is OK. In many cases, a mobile-based alert system would need to be integrated with an existing in-house or 3rd party monitoring centre and its back office application software.
The problem with these two approaches is that neither offers reliable support when operating on a standard wireless network. A simple mobile phone or mobile data (GPRS) connection cannot guarantee the managed delivery of a message. If the lone worker presses a panic button, he does not know whether his request has been received at headquarters. Similarly, if a worker does not respond to a timer that is sent from the centre, this may be because they are not in range of a GPS signal.
To ensure worker safety and compliance, a managed data service is needed to ensure that both the lone worker and the central office know at any time whether the worker is in range of a signal, and can give explicit acknowledgement that messages have been sent and received by the other party. Similarly, the service needs to include the ability to accurately give the worker’s last known location (when they had a connection).
Mobile workforce management solutions, which consist of integrated real-time data, scheduling and vehicle tracking enable companies to quickly identify and dispatch appropriately-qualified task based field workers, provide them with the information that they need to get the job done as efficiently, effectively and safely as possible. It can also provide employers with detailed records of location, tasks, and other key details about their working day, key to keeping compliant.
By utilising a system that can monitor and manage a mobile workforce’s location, tasks and job scheduling, industry can not only improve the safety of mobile workers but can also ensure corporate compliance with legislation like the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act.
David Perry is a director at Cognito. As the market-leading expert in Mobile Workforce Management systems and practices, Cognito provides consultancy, solutions and services to organisations with task-oriented field workers, enabling them to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. Cognito’s customers include Anglian Water, CitySprint, Dalkia ETS, Npower, Peterborough City Council and Volvo CE.
For further information, visit: www.cognito.co.uk.
No responsible company or manager deliberately sets out to put their staff in a position where they are likely to suffer or cause harm; nevertheless, according to government figures from 1996-2006, 2721 workers and 4312 members of the pubic were killed in work-related accidents in
the UK.
The Health and Safety Executive believes that the majority of workplace accidents are preventable. The new Act was designed to overcome a defect in the previous law which stated that while it was possible for a company as an entity to be negligent, a conviction for manslaughter required prosecutors to show that a ‘directing mind’ or an identified individual at the top of a company was responsible for a death.
The 2007 Act assesses liability on a wider basis to accommodate very serious management failings across an organisation. It is important to note that the Act does not necessarily lower the level of negligence that must be proved for a corporate manslaughter conviction, nor does it make any changes to the existing law with regards to prosecuting individuals such as the ‘directing mind’. It does, however, make it possible to prosecute an organisation by creating the obligation to a ‘duty of care’. This duty of care relates to duties already in place under the civil law of negligence.
If a death is deemed to fall under the terms of the act, the courts will look at the management systems and practices across the organisation to determine whether an adequate standard of care was applied across the activity. The threshold for conviction is gross negligence, with a substantial part of the failing occurring at the senior management level. In most cases, a jury is allowed to consider the broader attitudes within the organisation towards safety, but management will not be able to argue that they delegated their responsibility. It is important then, that management and the company can demonstrate that they had controls in place and made every effort to protect the worker.
An organisation convicted of the offence can receive an unlimited fine and a publicity order requiring that it publicise the fact of its conviction and some details of the offence. This publicity is to be made in a way decided by the court. This could leave the company’s reputation in ruins and incur massive loss of revenues beyond the initial fine.
So what can fleet managers do to protect themselves? Despite the heavy penalties for businesses, the act should not in itself pose a problem for well run companies. It does, however, show that a commitment to the active management and measurement of the business process is a core ingredient in a well-run and safe business. Companies should look at mobile workforce management solutions to provide the needed tracking and security of mobile workers. Mobile workforce management solutions can monitor and track a field engineers’ activities and ensure that health and safety checks have been carried out prior to work commencing. They also ensure that there is a communication link between the office and the field worker, which provides the ability to control risk and keep in contact, important when engineers are working in hazardous environments.
One area of substantial concern for many businesses is that of the lone worker. A worker attending a job site by himself is at great risk as he has limited contact with the rest of the business. In the event of an accident, the employee has very few options. Therefore, the duty of care to lone workers covers the training that they receive for the jobs that they are assigned, and the back up that is available to them should they get into difficulty.
The timely arrival of backup relies on accurate information on the exact location and circumstances of the lone worker requiring assistance. The employer cannot assume that the worker will be able to remove himself from his situation and call for help. It may be the case that an absence of communication is a telling factor as a worker failing to check in may have been injured, or could be facing a challenging social situation such as a customer confrontation where calling for backup may exacerbate already dangero circumstances.
In order to offer comprehensive lone worker protection and compliance to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, the worker should be issued with a means of communication that includes an ability to accurately locate a worker’s position at all times. The most straightforward approach is to issue the worker with a PDA that contains a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS reporting needs to be linked to a mapping system of sufficient accuracy to make locating the worker simple.
For communication, there are two principal approaches. The first approach requires an action from the worker, which would naturally include the use of a mobile phone, or an application on a PDA (‘smart’ phone), which could be extended to include a panic button that is linked to an embedded software application. When pressed, the panic button would be capable of calling for assistance and relaying a position to those back at base.
The second approach is a passive solution where a timer runs on a software application on the PDA and requires the lone worker to perform an action, such as acknowledge a pop-up window to give a signal that everything is OK. In many cases, a mobile-based alert system would need to be integrated with an existing in-house or 3rd party monitoring centre and its back office application software.
The problem with these two approaches is that neither offers reliable support when operating on a standard wireless network. A simple mobile phone or mobile data (GPRS) connection cannot guarantee the managed delivery of a message. If the lone worker presses a panic button, he does not know whether his request has been received at headquarters. Similarly, if a worker does not respond to a timer that is sent from the centre, this may be because they are not in range of a GPS signal.
To ensure worker safety and compliance, a managed data service is needed to ensure that both the lone worker and the central office know at any time whether the worker is in range of a signal, and can give explicit acknowledgement that messages have been sent and received by the other party. Similarly, the service needs to include the ability to accurately give the worker’s last known location (when they had a connection).
Mobile workforce management solutions, which consist of integrated real-time data, scheduling and vehicle tracking enable companies to quickly identify and dispatch appropriately-qualified task based field workers, provide them with the information that they need to get the job done as efficiently, effectively and safely as possible. It can also provide employers with detailed records of location, tasks, and other key details about their working day, key to keeping compliant.
By utilising a system that can monitor and manage a mobile workforce’s location, tasks and job scheduling, industry can not only improve the safety of mobile workers but can also ensure corporate compliance with legislation like the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act.
David Perry is a director at Cognito. As the market-leading expert in Mobile Workforce Management systems and practices, Cognito provides consultancy, solutions and services to organisations with task-oriented field workers, enabling them to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. Cognito’s customers include Anglian Water, CitySprint, Dalkia ETS, Npower, Peterborough City Council and Volvo CE.
For further information, visit: www.cognito.co.uk.
