CITB SMSTS means taking your responsibilities seriously
14 January 2019
If you are a site manager considering your CITB SMSTS refresher as simply a formality, then you need to think about the consequences of poor quality training.
Can a 2 day SMSTS Refresher course, really prove competence?
This is a debate on many forums and rightly so, construction is a dangerous business. With construction health and safety fines around the £13 million mark, it’s the site manager who bares the greatest personal consequence. Where as a company may get fined, the site manager is likely to face a custodial sentence if proven to be negligent in their responsibilities.
Do you think the SMSTS refresher is simply ticking a box?
If you subscribe to a poor quality training provider to ‘tick a box’ the true cost is likely to be greater than the few pounds discount or the lack of professional scrutiny of your exam. Whilst the number of deaths has decreased in recent years, in 2017-2018 there were 38 construction worker fatalities across the UK, with another 64,000 workers having suffered non-fatal injuries (2016-2017). These figures are higher than in any other industry sector, with most fatal accidents occurring as a result of falling from a height.
You face significantly higher risk if you are the nominated site manager
Andrew William Winterton, the construction site manager and director of Conquest Homes was jailed for four years for manslaughter in June 2017 - after a ground worker was crushed to death at a building site where he was responsible for site safety. Even though Winterton’s lawyers claimed the director had never seen the finished trench and was unaware of the danger it posed. But Lady Justice Macur and two other judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London dismissed his challenge on 6 November 2018.
Smaller developments are statistically more likely to encounter safety breaches
A high proportion of these incidents occur on small construction projects. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is well aware of this fact, and as well as performing spot-checks on construction sites, targeted inspection initiatives are also routinely carried out.
It pays to choose a credible training provider not the cheapest and easiest to pass with
When it comes to the construction industry, health and safety is about more than simply ticking boxes – it’s about avoiding potentially serious incidents where employees could get severely injured. The CITB 5 day SMSTS Course, and the CITB 2 day refresher are designed for anyone in a managerial or supervisory role in the construction industry. It makes sure that the people responsible for staff on a construction site know everything they need to know about how to keep people safe.
