Clients and Construction Health And Safety (H&S)

Abstract

Contractor H&S is influenced directly and indirectly by clients. Furthermore, traditionally, worldwide, better practice client organisations have maintained rigorous contractor H&S management programmes and contributed to contractor H&S. Given the above, a self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted among developer members of the South African Property Owners Association’s (SAPOA) to determine construction H&S perceptions and practices. Findings include: clients view the traditional project parameters of time, quality, and cost as more important than public H&S and project H&S; client organisations can be deemed to have influenced and contributed to contractors’ H&S relative to a range of interventions / requirements; clients appoint agents to fulfil their function in terms of the Construction Regulations; a range of design, procurement, and construction aspects impact on H&S; a range of benefits accrue from client contributions to contractor H&S; clients contend that they have influenced construction H&S, and that they could influence construction H&S more, and a range of design, procurement and construction aspects / interventions can contribute to an improvement in construction H&S. Conclusions include that clients do influence construction H&S and that multi-stakeholder benefits accrue there from, and that clients can further contribute to construction H&S. Furthermore, the client related requirements of the Construction Regulations are underscored by the findings. Recommendations include that property and other built environment tertiary education related programmes should address construction H&S, and SAPOA and other professional associations should evolve construction H&S practice notes. Creative Construction Conference 2019.