7 August 2013

Costain picked up a trio of titles at the 2013 Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Occupational Health & Safety Awards.

In the glittering awards ceremony, held at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, the Costain Welsh Water team won the ‘Most Improved’ performance category. It also took the Highly Commended slot in the Excellence Award, while Works Superintendent, Tony Kopec, was commended in the Outstanding Contribution category.

“The team won the Most Improved award for its work on the Coed Dolwyd Service Reservoir scheme. The award was won not through recovering from a previous dip in performance but by a series of initiatives that led to continuous improvement on already high standards,” said Public Relations Manager for the Welsh Water AMP 5 framework, Sara Brady.

In its submission in the ‘Most Improved’ category the team noted that a safety, health and environment (SHE) training programme had been offered to all operatives to ensure the creation of a culture that encourages and looks closely at changing behaviours. There was a significant increase, for example, in the number of Safety observations.

Sara added: “The safety record on-site had been excellent, with more than 120,000 man-hours worked without a RIDDOR* up to 12 April. The team regularly scored above 8.5 in the monthly scored inspection (legal compliance being a score of 7.0) and numerous incentives had been developed to ensure that the team was continually improving.

“All operatives were coached to be accountable and take responsibility for their own safety and that of their peers around them. The Gang Supervisors Coaching programme had been a positive initiative which had been devised to increase responsibility for Health and Safety amongst the workforce.”

The Highly Commended position was won for overall performance on the Framework, while Tony Kopec’s commendation was for rolling out the various SHE measures.

The ‘Most Improved’ and Excellence awards brought with them prizes of £1,000 and £500 respectively. This money will be donated to local charities, selected from suggestions by Costain Welsh Water staff.

Framework Director, John Madden, commented: “Costain secured more awards than any other company and I would like to thank and acknowledge everyone’s efforts within the team for achieving these awards.”

Matt Crabtree, Costain’s Sector Director for Water, added: “We have had some positive  feedback from Welsh Water recently regards our fantastic safety record and it is great to see the success of John and his team reflected at these awards”.

*Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (1995)

Ends