Speech at WSH Council 2008 Construction CEO Summit

Mr Gan Kim Yong, Acting Minister for Manpower, Regent Hotel

Mr Heng Chiang Gnee
Deputy Chairman, Workplace Safety and Health Council

Mr John Spanswick
Chairman, Bovis Lend Lease, and Commissioner of the Health and Safety Commission (UK)

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning.

I am pleased to join you at the inaugural Construction CEO Summit organised by the Workplace Safety and Health Council or W-S-H Council for short.

2. First, I would like to commend the WSH Council Construction and Landscaping Committee for its good work. The construction industry's determination and efforts to improve WSH outcomes have been encouraging. Over the years, safety standards in your industry have improved significantly. The number of fatalities in the industry was reduced from 72 10 years ago to 24 last year, despite higher level of activities.

3. It is important to recognise and encourage sustained industry efforts. My Ministry and the Council cannot improve safety standards on our own. Your support is critical. With the safety bar raised, we need all parties – property developers, designers, contractors, subcontractors – to be committed in the pursuit of better safety outcomes. I believe that our construction industry can do this. As Mr Heng has mentioned, your presence here today is an important step on this journey.

Outlook for the Construction Sector

4. After enjoying robust growth over the last few years, we now face a weakening economic outlook. Confronted with a more difficult business environment, some contractors might resort to cutting corners and compromising on safety. This is a short-sighted and dangerous view. Construction companies that compromise on safety standards to save costs may eventually find it more costly when work is disrupted by accidents.

5. Good safety standards and good business outcome go hand-in-hand. Many of the construction companies and worksites that can boast good safety performance are also those that are doing well and have been awarded multiple projects. Bovis Lend Lease is a case in point. A multiple winner in the annual Workplace Safety and Health Awards, Bovis Lend Lease has the vision to operate Incident and Injury free on all its projects. In two particular projects of building Abbott Manufacturing's $450million facility and Lonza Biologics' $390 million plant in Tuas, Bovis Lend Lease successfully completed 10 million manhours with no serious injury to more than 4,000 workers. Its commitment to safety has contributed to its business success. In Singapore alone, Bovis Lend Lease has successfully delivered projects in the industrial, commercial, educational, life sciences and process plant construction sector to the value exceeding four billion Singapore dollars.

Management Commitment to WSH

6. Today, I am pleased to announce that some 33 construction CEOs and chairpersons¹, from developers and designers, to contractors and professional associations, will be pledging their commitment to establish a zero injury workplace. In particular, 20 developers and contractors will be signing a leadership charter named "Pledge for Zero – A CEO Commitment Charter". The Charter outlines their commitment to put in place the governance structure, resource allocation, communication and safety strategies required to achieve a zero injury workplace.

7. The "Pledge for Zero" Charter is a strong demonstration of industry commitment as it requires the signatories to report, in concrete terms, their safety and health challenges, progress, successes, initiatives and statistics. By signing the Charter, these CEOs acknowledge that the management's priorities go beyond traditional business concerns to include safety performance. Their readiness to commit to the terms under the "Pledge for Zero" Charter is a powerful promise that will influence the safety culture and outcomes within their companies. I would like to applaud these CEOs, led by Mr Jackson Yap, Group Managing Director and CEO of United Engineers Limited and also Chairman of the WSH Council Construction and Landscaping Committee, for their commitment. I hope that this unprecedented initiative will be embraced by more developers and contractors in the years to come.

Design for Safety guidelines

8. I believe many of you are also keen to make this commitment but are perhaps unsure of how you can realise the commitment. A good start will be to apply the new guidelines on "Design for Safety for Buildings and Structures"². This initiative aims to incorporate safety management at the start of any construction project – namely, the design stage.

9. My Ministry has worked with the WSH Council to develop this set of guidelines based on the United Kingdom's Construction (Design and Management), or CDM, Regulations. We consulted the industry extensively to improve the draft guidelines and secured the commitment of various stakeholders. A pilot run was successfully conducted with our local private companies and public sector agencies, such as Jurong Town Corporation, Keppel Land, the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts and the Ministry of Education. The Council's Construction Committee had also sent a team of industry experts to the UK to study their CDM framework early this year and further fine-tuned the guidelines.

10. With the new guidelines, the construction industry will be better able to fulfil one of the key principles of our WSH framework – "eliminating risks at source". Our WSH laws require stakeholders, at every stage of work to assess the risks involved and determine how best they can eliminate or mitigate these risks at the source. The "Design for Safety" guidelines will help stakeholders meet this requirement by factoring in risks and safety considerations at the planning stage. It aims to create buildings that are safe to build, safe to maintain and safe to demolish. Let me elaborate on how this can be done.

11. To ensure that the building is safe to build - a designer should specify the use of less hazardous materials such as solvent free adhesives or water-based paints at the construction phase. For safety in maintenance, designers can design safe access to rooftops and hence reduce the use of ladders and scaffolds. For safety in demolition, designers can also specify in their designs where the tension cables are located to allow for their safe removal during future demolition.

12. The "Design for Safety" guidelines is a step in our efforts to tackle WSH risks upstream at the planning and design stage. We still have much to learn from leaders such as the UK, which has a well-established and sophisticated framework on this front. Today's keynote speaker, Mr Spanswick, will share the UK's experience in developing the CDM approach and making it an integral part of the construction process. I encourage companies to adopt the "Design for Safety" guidelines and work together with the Council as we move forward in our WSH journey.

Conclusion

13. Once again, I thank our partners in the construction sector for their commitment and support of WSH efforts over the years. Let me also congratulate the WSH Council for organising this landmark event, and for driving the "Pledge for Zero" and "Design for Safety" initiatives. The industry has weathered several challenges on the safety front over the past year, but I am confident that, with the commitment of all stakeholders, we can further improve WSH standards and outcomes for the industry. Thank you.

¹ Please refer to Annex A for the list of supporting CEOs.

² Please refer to the Fact Sheet on Design for Safety in Annex B.