As stories of further delays on the Wembley National Stadium project emerged last month, those in charge of the Olympics construction programme are confident they can avoid becoming a laughing stock, deliver fantastic sporting venues for the 2012 Games, and leave a legacy that will regenerate east London. Roland Ellison spoke to the Olympic Delivery Authority’s head of health and safety, Lawrence Waterman.
When staff at the Olympic delivery Authority (ODA) saw the countdown screensaver on their computer screens tick below the six-year mark on 27 July, 2012 suddenly didn’t seem so far away. Between now and then, the ODA will be working under extreme scrutiny by the international media and held to account by the Government and taxpayers alike. It is working in goldfish bowl in every sense.
Unnerved by the enormity of the task ahead, the ODA has no history as a construction industry client yet it is responsible for spending billions of pounds of public money on a construction and regeneration project that will be the largest in Europe. The experienced individuals that make up the ODA team are well aware of the importance of good planning, organisation and foresight. Indeed, the initials ODA could be said to stand for Open, Dynamic and Accountable: open, in that people can see in from the outside, but also open to positive ideas that have worked successfully elsewhere; dynamic, because it has a lot of work to do and it needs to make sure it gets on with it effectively and efficiently; and accountable, because it’s a public body.
In health and safety circles there has been much excitement about the opportunities presented by the project to promote best practice and boost the profile of health and safety in the construction industry. In charge of making this happen is Lawrence Waterman, who was officially appointed as head of health and safety in July, having worked with the ODA in an interim role since December 2005.
President of IOSH in 2005, Waterman is chair of health, safety and environment specialist Sypol and was occupational health advisor on BAA’s successful Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) project during the planning phase. At the ODA he heads an onsite, offline advisory team that includes an environment advisor, security advisor, an occupational health advisor, and a safety practitioner, all of whom are available to anyone in the supply chain seeking advice on all aspects of the project.
Says Waterman: “If we are able to establish really good occupational health and safety provision on site, have a low level of accidents and prevent fatalities, that approach will enhance people’s well-being. Being at work should be something that makes you healthier, not the other way round.”
Learning from the past
Experience from major construction projects like T5, and previous Olympic and Commonwealth Games has informed the approach to 2012, with a real emphasis on planning for all foreseeable problems and getting things right from the design phase.
The ODA’s strategy can be summed up as 2-4-1: two years of planning, four years of building, and one year of test events. The two years of planning is incredibly important, as Waterman points out: “All of the evidence in construction is that if you spend enough time properly thinking through and designing projects with health and safety in mind, then you can end up with a well-run project that goes smoothly.
“The timescale on some previous major construction programmes has been so telescoped that people have found it very difficult to properly plan for health and safety and ensure that it’s properly addressed. We are working very closely with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) rather than simply being the organisation that hands over the keys to venues when they are ready.”
Experience gleaned by individual ODA team members on a wide range of public and private projects will stand them in good stead for the task ahead. Waterman describes what has been achieved at T5 and, in particular, with the T5 Agreement, as “tremendously instructive” in terms of how a massive project can be run effectively.
The T5 Agreement was unique in that it involved all major contractors on the project from the beginning. BAA took on all the risk involved in the construction programme and worked with contractors as partners, with clearly defined costs and profit margins. Contractors could therefore concentrate on solving problems on the project, rather than avoiding possible litigation for problems arising and time delays.
The ODA is currently looking at ways of dealing with industrial relations, materials supply, and a whole range of other aspects of the Olympics programme, where establishing inclusive partnerships with contractors early on is likely to avoid the sort of costly and protracted legal battles that have dogged recent large-scale construction projects. Unlike Wembley or the Scottish Parliament building, failure to have the venues tested and completely operational on time is not an option.
Standard issue
The Olympic Delivery Programme and Health and Safety Standard for the project were both published in July. While Waterman admits that the first draft of the health and safety document “is like War and Peace”, such detail is essential, given that the the ODA has no history as a construction client.
Produced with help from the Institution of Civil Engineers and IOSH, Waterman sees the document as a statement of intent: “It’s a sort of client’s stake in the ground: this is what we expect and we need to make it clear that we, as a client, are taking some leadership.”
Of course, buy-in from the management has long been hailed as the first crucial step to improving health and safety performance, and Waterman claims this is something that the ODA is fully committed to. He says: “At board level, the leaders of the operation say health and safety gets woven into what we do because it’s the way in which we can do it properly.”
Time marches on
Waterman admits that delays on the project are possible, but insists there is no way that people’s health and safety on site will be put in jeopardy as a result. He says: “The problem is that if you think of health and safety arrangements as an obstacle to getting the job done, then of course the idea of unbolting them and leaving them to one side can seem quite attractive. We need to make sure that everyone recognises that good health and safety arrangements are crucial underpinnings of efficient operations, and that accidents, loss of materials, damage to equipment, mistakes that you’ve got to correct are all related to health and safety policy and efficiency.”
The Athens Games in 2004 were marred by stories of poor working conditions and people having to work long hours as a result of delays, but Waterman is adamant that this will not be the case in London, even if delays do cause some problems: “Experience from projects that have been under time pressure, or even overdue, is that people get in each other’s way and you don’t get the efficiencies you need. The reason why we are being so careful with the planning is so that we can make sure that there is a proper sequence of build for all venues and infrastructure, and we don’t end up with those kind of time pressures right at the end of the project. We have two years for planning and a year at the end so it will not go right to the wire, which is prudent.”
Constructing a safer industry
Waterman hopes that the success of 2012 as a landmark project will have a dramatic effect on how the construction industry operates in the UK: “The great thing about being in a goldfish bowl is that one of the legacies of the 2012 games can be – if we get it right – the leveraging of improved health and safety in the construction industry. It’s a sector that has been doing better over the last few years but it is still responsible for a lot of people being hurt.”
One thing that has been agreed is that people working on site will have to be Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) card-holders. The CSCS scheme is something that Waterman is keen to defend: “I know there has been some cynicism about the CSCS scheme because it’s not a very difficult qualification to get the card, but with nearly one million card-holders, it is the dominant scheme in construction. For people who say that ‘it’s not good enough’, just ask them ‘is it better than nothing?’ The idea that any scheme you might have would be un-improvable is ridiculous. For me, to be able to take someone who may not be very literate or educated, who maybe has been working in construction for a while and never been given proper health and safety training – to provide them with a briefing which they later have to pass a test on is a fantastic advance.”
He continues: “The one underpinning common factor for a CSCS card – as a skilled worker in a whole range of trades, or as a general labourer – is that you have to pass the health and safety test. I think that is an advance and establishes a principle that you can then expand because you can make that test more extensive, you can tune up the training that’s provided, or talk about refresher courses. I think a lot of people who knock the CSCS scheme are people that maybe don’t understand the nature of construction”.
A magnet for migrant workers
A project of this magnitude will inevitably attract workers from all over, including people from outside the UK. Managing the health and safety of those who don’t speak English will therefore be a major challenge but it has been anticipated in the Health and Safety Standard, which requires contractors to work with the ODA to ensure language needs are addressed.
Waterman explains: “We have three levels: firstly, we have induction when they come in; secondly the site is geared up to help people – even British construction workers who are not entirely literate; thirdly, we are making arrangements so that people who don’t have English as their first language are working with, or being supervised by, people who are bilingual. This is all written in the strategy.”
Signage on site will be visual rather than textual, and supervisory or buddy arrangements will mean that people who don’t have English as a first language are not isolated in environments where they are unable to understand their instructions.
“We are not going to be to be putting up any barriers, or saying that non-English need not apply,” adds Waterman. “They deserve to be working on the site just as much as anyone else.”
Eastern promise
Leaving something of value behind for the people of east London and making sure the venues will serve a sustainable purpose once the Olympic and Paralympic Games have left town are vital considerations in the ODA’s work. As Waterman says: “The ODA is committed to delivering infrastructure and fantastic venues for the Olympic Games. If we end up producing a whole series of theatres for a great show in six years’ time but six months after that they are rusting hulks with no benefit to the local community – we would deem our job to have failed.”
One problem, however, is the size of the venues, particularly the athletics stadium, which will form the centrepiece of the Olympic Park. Apart from the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games, and possibly the Commonwealth Games, it is incredibly unlikely that an athletics meeting would ever attract more than 20,000 spectators. So what do you do with an athletics stadium with a capacity for 80,000 spectators? Unsuitable for football or other sports, the stadium would be a hugely expensive and pointless legacy to maintain.
It is therefore a specification of the design tender that architects must be able to demonstrate how the stadium they have designed can be reduced from an 80,000-capacity stadium to a 20,000-capacity stadium once the Olympic and Paralympic Games have finished.
Waterman explains: “This is a good example for understanding the philosophy of the ODA. Defining a venue as fit for purpose is defining it as fit for purpose and for legacy. All our design and build work will be done in stages: design and build a venue that is fit for the Olympics; set up the logistics; have test events; install the Olympic overlay; run the games; modify the Olympic overlay for the Paralympic games; adapt the stadium for legacy; and hand the venues over to the legacy managers.”
In terms of benefiting the local community, the London Development Authority – on behalf of the Mayor, the Greater London Authority and the schools minister – is leading on skills and employment. It is currently looking at all kinds of initiatives for people in east London who are unemployed or keen to improve their career prospects.
Says Waterman, “Of course it may not be always possible to convert someone into a skilled plumber or electrician but it would be possible to teach someone who has no specific trade skills to end up with a CSCS card, or a first-aid qualification. So rather than turning up on site and saying ‘I left school and for the past five years I’ve been doing this and that job’, people can say ‘I really want to work here and look at the things that I’ve done in order to equip myself to work here.'”
Waterman’s enthusiasm for 2012 is obvious and his ambitions for changing the UK’s approach to construction are honourable. Whether that enthusiasm will be as strong among the London council tax-payers who are footing the bill for a large proportion of the project remains to be seen. One thing is certain: it won’t take many mistakes or oversights for a vicious campaign against the project to gather momentum. In the media’s eyes, the greatest of all crimes is squandering public money. The ODA will have its work cut out to prevent that from happening, or at least mitigate the consequences if it does.
Both the ODA and LOCOG have assembled a world-class team to prepare for what many hope will be a fantastic spectacle. Only time will tell if they really have left no stone unturned.
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