Why the Risk Concentrates

In most industries, contractors suffer a disproportionate share of serious injuries and fatalities relative to the hours they work. The reasons are structural rather than individual.

The factors

• They perform the highest-hazard tasks — maintenance, shutdowns, construction, confined space entry, work at height — which is frequently why they were engaged.
• They are unfamiliar with the site, its hazards, its alarms, its layout and its conventions.
• They are under acute commercial pressure: fixed price, penalties for delay, and the knowledge that raising problems may affect future work.
• They are managed at arm's length, with the client assuming the contractor manages safety and the contractor assuming the client controls the site.
• They frequently work with subcontractors, sometimes several tiers deep, where requirements and information dilute at each hand-off.
• Their workforce may change constantly, and agency and short-term labour may not receive the induction the core team did.
• They may be outside the reporting system, so their incidents never reach the client's data or investigation process.

The duty

Engaging a contractor transfers the work, not the duty. A client retains duties to contractors working on its site or under its control, and those duties cannot be contracted away. A contract clause making the contractor "responsible for all safety matters" allocates cost and liability between the parties; it does not remove the client's obligations, and it will not be accepted as a defence.

The question is not whether the contractor is responsible. It is what the client did to satisfy itself that the work would be done safely.