NEBOSH IGC Solve Mock Test No 3

SCENARIO

The wildlife park

Wig moss Wildlife Park (WWP) is a tourist attraction celebrating its 50-year anniversary this summer. When it first opened, WWP consisted of a large mansion and gardens, with a small number of animal enclosures. Since then, the WWP complex has expanded to be five times larger. WWP has a workforce of 200 permanent and 200 temporary workers, and has 800000 visitors per year.

Forty-five years ago, a fire destroyed a monkey enclosure attached to the mansion. The ruined enclosure was demolished and replaced with a large café. To celebrate their anniversary, WWP began three months ago to convert part of the café back into a monkey enclosure. During the construction work, 70% of the café area has been cordoned off. The rest of the café remains open.

The Grounds Manager (GM) hired a construction company called ‘CP’ for the work, after a friend recommended them. The GM was impressed by CP’s online portfolio. During a telephone call, CP confidently assured the GM that they could complete the work. This was despite having never built an animal enclosure before. The GM was happy not to spend time searching for other potential contractors and hired CP immediately. The GM arranged for CP to conduct a risk assessment of the site before construction began. CP told the GM to “leave everything else to us” including the “difficult health and safety stuff”, which the GM readily agreed to.

The ‘talks’

Each morning the CP construction workers gather to discuss the plans for the day, and possible improvements. Recently, a few WWP team leaders overheard these discussions and started similar

‘talks’ with their teams. Within a month of these talks accident rates reduced. The WWP teams involved in these talks now work less overtime and look happier. These teams enthusiastically recommended the new system and discussed it with other teams. Other team leaders who heard this, became interested in trying this new system in their own teams. Now, most of the WWP team leaders start their day with a team ‘talk’.

You joined WWP this year, as a team leader, with responsibility for one of the animal enclosures. You have health and safety qualifications as part of your university degree. This impressed WWP in your original interview, because “safety is vital in this type of work”. The interviewers boasted about being accident-free for 10 years. They talked about how the chief executive meets all new workers at the thorough induction training. The interviewers proudly described a range of worker health and wellbeing benefits, as well as specific health and safety training.

You are also trying to incorporate the talks into your team’s daily schedule, but so far, your team have been unwilling to participate. Most of your team has worked together for 30 years and are called The Gang by other workers. They are always quiet around you, so you want to use these talks to involve the team more. This way you can understand your team better and improve work activities.

You eventually gather your team and explain the reason for these talks, then ask if anyone has any suggestions or questions. After a long silence, the youngest and least confident team member starts speaking. They are immediately interrupted by the longest-serving team member (LSTM). They announce: “You should have brought snacks for us, otherwise this talk will just be a waste of time.” The youngest team member who was interrupted looks away, while everyone else awkwardly nods in agreement. You explain why it is not a waste of time, but the team look towards the LSTM who stubbornly remains silent. You sigh and tell the team to discuss ideas while you buy snack food from the WWP café.

On the five-minute walk to the café, you pass several other animal enclosures and the construction workers’ facilities. Before entering the café, you take out a packet of disposable ear plugs from your pocket and put them into your ears. You started bringing the ear plugs to work with you when the construction began, and always keep a pack on you. While walking across the café your foot suddenly slips on the stone floor and you fall, but you grab a nearby table and avoid hitting the ground.

Looking down at the floor, you discover dust and dirt trailing from the café toilets towards the emergency exit door. This door is being partially held open with a wedge of wood. Following the trail, you open the emergency exit door wider to discover it leads to the mansion’s main entrance hall, where visitors normally enter WWP. This hall gives access to the gift shop, information centre, the ticket booths, and the temporary construction site entrance.

The construction site

You leave the café through the emergency exit and stand at the temporary construction site entrance gate. You shout to gain the attention of anyone inside, but you do not receive a response. Carefully opening the gate, you see that building materials and equipment are piled on the floor. Cables trail across the ground to a noisy old diesel generator. Additionally, loud music is playing from a radio. You see a stationary forklift truck (FLT) with a wooden plank across its raised forks. A CP worker is standing on top of the plank welding a metal framework. The worker is shifting their weight from side to side in time with the music. Their long, loose, sleeves slip over their gloves as they move. You look around for the site supervisor, but there is nobody else in sight.

You immediately leave the site and go to find the GM, to tell them everything you have seen. The GM assures you that they will contact the site supervisor straight away. The GM is impressed with your knowledge and reliability and asks if you will take on a health and safety role. You say you will think about it. Before you leave, the GM reminds you to fill in the near-miss book for your slip.

On the way back to the café, you inform the relevant WWP worker that the café floor needs cleaning. The near-miss book in the café is easily located. As you record the incident you are surprised to see a large increase in entries over the last six months. Before leaving the café, you find two ‘Slippery Surface’ signs (A-boards) and put them on either end of the dirt trail.

You return to your team but find they have abandoned the talk. This does not surprise you since you were away for longer than expected. At this time of day, the youngest team member routinely makes a hot drink in a nearby worker kitchen. You look for them, hoping that they will tell you about their suggestions from the talk. When you find them, you ask what they thought. You learn that the LSTM told everyone not to “hang around when there is work to do” only 5 minutes after you left. You notice that the drink they have made is coffee; this confuses you because you know they dislike coffee. You ask them about it and they reply that it is the LSTM’s regular morning drink.

The accident

The conversation ends when you hear emergency sirens near to the mansion. You quickly walk towards the sound to find out what has happened. You see a person being carried out of the entrance hall on a stretcher, towards an ambulance. Burns cover the person’s arm, and their collar bone has broken through the skin. Horrified, you recognise them as the construction worker who was standing on the FLT.

Nearby, the GM is speaking to WWP’s lead first-aider, and the construction site supervisor who looks annoyed and dismissive. The GM appears to be in a state of shock when they approach you. They reveal that they searched for the site supervisor after you left their office. They had just entered the construction site when they saw the accident happen. After seeing this, and the conditions on the site, they do not trust CP’s health and safety standards anymore. The GM asks you to look at the risk assessment that CP completed six months ago. They want you to check if it is suitable and sufficient, and if it covers how risks should be controlled.

Task 1: Commenting on WWP’s approach to selecting contractors

Comment on WWP’s inadequate approach to selecting contractors for the

monkey enclosure construction.

Note:You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant

WWP approach to select the contractor has not been good for construction of the monkey enclosures and here are some examples of negative or poor approach.

It is good practice that contractor experience in relevant work should be checked but they did not bother to check contractor has relevant experience of monkey closures construction or not.
Instead of conducting marketing search and looking for three-four options of the contractors and the selecting the best one. They over-relied on his friend relations only for contract awarding.
It is good practice that H& S performance of the contractor should be checked for this HSE professional person should investigated but it was not done and contractor was hired on the basis of relationships of the GM.
It is good practice that risk assessments should be demanded and checked from contractor but nothing was done by the WWP management team in this regard. WWP only rely on his own old risk assessment which do not seems suitable and sufficient.
It is good practice that method statement of the enclosure should be obtained from contractor and checked but by WWP Park nothing was done in this regard.
It is good practice that history of the contractor should be checked and research should be done from the past clients. They can provide sufficient feedback about the contractor but it was not done.
It is good practice to check that contractor has sufficient resources for the project like budget, machinery and manpower but it was not done by the Management of the WWP.
It is recommended that Health and safety policy of the contractor should be checked, But WWP Management did not bother about to demand and check contractor HSE policy.
It is good practice to check qualifications & certifications of the key personal of the contractor but WWP did not check and demand these documents.
It is good practice to check safety training records ( Work at height , Hot work) etc. of the contractor workers and supervisors and others but GM did not do this important task.
It is good practice to check membership of a professional bodies of the country like Engineering Council to evaluate contractor credibility & professional standings but it was not done.
It is good practice to check repair & maintenance record of the key equipment like crane & FLT and these documents were not demanded & not checked from the contractor.
It is good practice to check calibration and testing reports of measuring equipment and gauges but this was also ignored by the WWP
It is good practice to check current clients and recent projects in hands of the contractor, If contractor has too many project in hands, he will subcontract the work.
It is good practice to check accident records & safety performance of the contractors, contractor market reputation of safety but neither GM nor safety professional did this.
It was better that GM should consult with the safety professional regarding selection of the contractor but he did not engage and consultant safety professional.
It is good practice to check Enforcement actions from Enforcement authority against the contractor; it is possible he has not been involved in fulfilling the legal laws and regulations.
All these things also indicate that there is no procedure for contractor selection, technical evaluation and financial bids. WWP approach to select the contractor has been poor & ineffective.