Agenda item

Damian Dempsey, Group Leader – Quantity Surveyors and Ryan Collymore, Group Leader – Contract Monitoring were present and made a presentation to the Committee, a copy of which is interleaved.

During consideration of the presentation the following main points were made –

·         Scaffolding is used as falls from height are the largest cause of fatality and serious injury in the construction industry and account for 50% of all construction fatalities including falls from low level and falls through fragile material

·         It is the Council’s duty to ensure all of its staff and contractors work safely and reduce risk

·         Precautions are required to prevent falls or minimise the risk of injury from a fall from height

·         Scaffolding is used for access over the height of six metres or where it is not possible to use any other working at height equipment to carry out a safety repair

·         During the last year 2013/14 approximately 2000 scaffolds had to be erected for responsive repairs only and on average the cost of a single scaffold was £1200 (£2,400,000 total)

·         There were a number of different types of access for surveys and works – scaffolding, mast climbers, cradles, abseiling, cherry pickers, hoists, mobile towers, ladders, mobile plant,cranes, pole mounted cameras and drones

·         There are advantages and disadvantages to all these methods and there was various health and safety legislation for the management of scaffolding. In simple terms the law requires that scaffolding operations are properly planned and then carried out safely on site

·         There were a number of issues with scaffold and solutions to these – scaffolding being up too long at a property – joint working between the delivery and contract teams to manage the contract and improved procedures for erecting and dismantling. In addition, consideration needed to be given to safety of the public, and all tenants are informed of costs prior to works engagement. There are improved contractor rates through competitive tendering and use of schedule of rates to benchmark costs

·         Discussion took place as to whether the Council should set up its own in-house scaffolding provision and the following issues were raised –

Storage Site – a larger site would have to be available, which would cost in the region of £100k per annum

Vehicles – 4 large flat bed lorries costing an estimate of £62k per year

Staff – to manage annual demand for 2,000 erected scaffolds, 12 staff would be required at an estimated cost of £420k per year, turnover of staff could be high because of local rates

Contractors – would still be needed for high demand periods

Equipment – would be cost of management of this, loss of equipment and maintenance

·         There would need to be weekly inspections of scaffolds by qualified staff

·         There would be increased insurance costs due to risk

·         Wherever possible in future the Council were trying to design out the need for scaffolding by  using maintenance free materials and fixings, windows, gutters, fascias, cladding, self-finish renders, clean/jet washing that reduces the need for painting, facilitation of cleaning from inside

·         When there was new build design there was a need to think about maintenance needs and access requirements during new build design and if scaffolding was used to undertake a cost in use analysis and consider provision of permanent access facilities including – moveable access platforms, chimney ladders, cradle systems, abseiling harness anchors, ongoing repair/insurance costs of anchorage points

·         Advantages of scaffold access for repairs included being innovative, employing local labour, having greater control, potential for cheaper negotiated rates in the long term, potential for partnering/alliances with existing companies or in conjunction with other boroughs

·         Disadvantages include the high initial cost of plant, the need for a huge quantity of scaffolding equipment, large storage capacity and depot location, a high number of skilled trained staff, peaks and troughs of work, insurances, existing contract obligations, continuity and non-continuity, potential for disputes/delays with contractors, is the proposal affordable and/or commercially viable

·         Members expressed the view that it appeared from the costings in the report that the setting up of an ‘in house’ scaffolding team would be cost effective and that it would be useful to have more detailed costings provided to a future meeting of the Committee. In addition it would be useful if costings could be provided for scaffolding costs in previous years and a breakdown of costs on cyclical maintenance and major repair works. It was stated that with regard to responsive repairs they could not provide up to date figures as the contract had only just come back ‘in house’

·         A Member stated that L.B.Camden were looking to set up an ‘in house’ scaffolding team and that consideration could be given to the sharing of services. It was stated that L.B.Camden would be giving witness evidence to a future meeting of the Committee

·         Reference was made to the fact that there was concern that scaffolding was left up on sites for longer than necessary and that there had been scaffolding on the Highbury Quadrant site for 3 to 4 months just to replace a broken roof tile. It was stated that in the contract there was inclusion for the erection of scaffolding and there was no additional cost for the scaffolding remaining up after completion of the works, except where there variations of the works by the Council

RESOLVED:

That the costs of scaffolding for previous years be submitted to the Committee and a breakdown of the costs of cyclical repairs and major repairs