Ian Wiliams wins gold RoSPA for Health and Safety

An Ian Williams product story

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Jun 18, 2009

Ian Williams has achieved the RoSPA gold award by reducing its accident rate by intoducing measures to improve health and safety..

One of the UK's leading property maintenance companies, Ian Williams saw the number of incidents fall by 27 per cent.

The company's 1,300 employees work in thousands of homes and public buildings across the country, as well as on development sites.

Regular jobs requiring specific attention to health and safety include electrical work, gas servicing, scaffolding erection and manual lifting.

Innovative measures introduced to cut accidents include an increase in safety training (75% of the training budget), the adoption of a two tier approach to site and scaffold inspections - including the use of a consultancy to monitor standards - and a greater emphasis on health and safety across all levels of the organisation which sees all accidents, regardless of severity reported.

To qualify for the award Ian Williams had to provide a wide range of evidence to show the organisation's commitment to health and safety.

Richard Parry, safety, health and environmental manager at Ian Williams, said: "Official statistics show that every year in the UK there are about 350 fatalities directly as a result of work, and over 36 million lost working days.

"Our teams across the country spend significant amounts of time in schools and homes carrying out major improvement programmes and wide ranging repairs and maintenance tasks, often including potentially hazardous electric and gas servicing.

It's therefore critical for our clients, residents and employees that we meet the highest levels of health and safety.

Achieving official recognition such as the Gold Award is fantastic".

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is a registered charity established more than 90 years ago.

By providing information, advice, resources and training, RoSPA is actively involved in the promotion of safety and the prevention of accidents in all areas of life - at work, in the home, on the roads, in schools, at leisure and on (or near) water.