Safety Steps is a series of documents that can be used freely – in whole or part – to help produce any type of height safety output for designers, clients, managers, supervisors or operatives. A key aim of the documents is to do away with continually redefining or looking for the essential messages for ensuring safe work at height. Safety Steps provides the key messages in one place, making it a valuable, long-term reference point for industry.
Safety Steps were created by the ‘Managing Risk Well’ Group, a leading safety group within construction industry body CONIAC (the Construction Industry Advisory Council), with input from the Access Industry Forum.
From toolbox talks to checklists, providing a structure for training material content to informing flowcharts, Safety Steps, have a wide range of uses.
Safety Steps contain general, rather than task-specific, messages. So, for example, they don’t provide information about specific situations such as the use of scaffolding or mobile work platforms, or working on roofs. Instead, their essential messages underpin any type of work at height activity.
The general guidance is a useful starting point
General Safety Steps is a concise summary of the general principles of safe working at height, for easy reference.
We recommend you start by downloading this general safety steps guidance and then select audience specific safety steps as required.
Eliminate work at height if possible
Work at height should be planned
Co-ordinate / communicate with client and others
Make sure all working at height is safe
Make sure you work safely at height
The Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) advises HSE and relevant stakeholders of emerging health and safety developments and risks in the construction industry, and sets a direction and plan for their promotion and mitigation.
Aligned to delivering Help Great Britain Work Well, CONIAC is organised under the six themes of acting togeter, tackling ill health, managing risk well, supporting small employers, keeping pace with change and sharing our success.
CONIAC’s Managing Risk Well Working Group (MRWWG) created a sub-group to focus on working at height
Drawn from industry bodies, trade associations and representatives of working at height trades, the sub-group was tasked with considering a framework for safe working at height.
The Safety Steps range of documentation is the output from the sub-group.
ECA’s Paul Reeve CFIOSH, chair of the sub-group that produced ‘Safety Steps’, commented:
“’Safety Steps’ provides the essential safety messages for the five key groups involved in work at height in construction and maintenance. It’s designed as an ‘enabling’ guide – meaning it can help anyone to produce, or just check, virtually any type of output that’s looking to support safe work at height”.
Peter Bennett OBE, chair of the AIF, commented:
“‘Safety Steps clearly explains – for everyone involved in the stakeholder chain – what they need to know about safe working at height, all in one easy to access, easy to use resource. We are pleased to host Safety Steps on the AIF website and we believe it could become a long-term ‘go to’ resource for the industry.”
Sarah Jardine, Acting Head of Construction Division, HSE, adds:
“I am grateful to the CONIAC Managing Risk Well Group and in particular the Work at Height sub-group, for developing the Safety Steps guide. This is an excellent example of the construction industry and HSE working together.”
If you’ve read or used the Safety Steps documents, we’d love to hear from you. Whether you have a suggestion for improvement or just want to make a comment, please do share your feedback using our short form. We’re keen to make these documents as useful as possible for you and your feedback helps us get there. All feedback will be read and considered by CONIAC’s Managing Risk Well Working Group and the Access Industry Forum.
Safety Steps have been produced by the Work at Height sub-group of the CONIAC ‘Managing Risk Well’ group.
You are free to reproduce and use, subject to the following conditions of use: