Speech by SMS Tan Kiat How at REDAS Workplace Health and Safety Leadership Forum
Sep 27, 2023
Good afternoon. I am very happy to be here to speak on this very important topic.
The safety of our workers is of paramount importance. This includes our migrant workers who have made sacrifices to leave their homes and families to make a living here and contribute to our Singapore story.
Over the years, Singapore has implemented various measures to improve safety standards in the construction sector.
For instance, all new construction workers must complete a Construction Safety Orientation Course before their deployment. This mandatory course equips workers with essential knowledge and skills to recognise and address potential safety hazards.
Under the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) (Design for Safety) Regulations, duties were placed on developers and designers to identify foreseeable risks even at the planning and conceptual stages. This includes incorporating safe access to maintenance in the building design. These efforts underscore Singapore’s commitment to enhancing the safety for our construction sector.
We have been making progress over the years. Internationally, Singapore’s fatality rates for the construction sector are among the lowest in Asia, and comparable to global leaders like Sweden and Australia.
But worryingly, we saw a spike in workplace incidents as the sector raced to catch up with the backlog and pent-up demand following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transforming Towards Safer Work Sites
So I am heartened to see some improvements recently. During the Heightened Safety Period, firms and workers invested extra effort to ensure safe practices within their companies.
Thanks to your support, annualised the fatal injury rate has fallen to 0.8 per 100,000 workers in the first half of this year. This is an improvement from a rate of 1.3 in the second half of 2022, and about 1.6 in the first half of 2022.
An improvement, but every fatality is still a tragic event.
I am glad to see industry leaders of the Built Environment sector coming together to exchange ideas and share best practices on how to improve workplace health and safety. The Government will do our part to partner you in doing so. As part of the Multi-Agency Workplace Safety and Health Taskforce – or MAST, for short – MND and BCA have been working closely with MOM and industry partners to develop targeted measures to improve workplace safety and health for our sector.
We have already announced several measures.
For instance, to reinforce management’s accountability for their employees’ safety, Chief Executives must now personally take responsibility for serious lapses following fatal or serious workplace incidents involving their firms.
Senior leaders of companies in high-risk industries, including construction, will also need to complete training on workplace safety and health by March next year.
Working Together to Improve Workplace Safety and Health
Protecting lives and improving workplace safety require continual effort, hard work and vigilance by everyone. All parties have a role to play.
Developers play an important role to shape better safety practices in projects. For instance: (i) Establishing higher safety standards for the contractors that you employ, (ii) Incentivising good safety performance or rewards for contractors who come up with innovative safety solutions, and most importantly (iii) Creating a culture where safety is a top and shared priority across all parties involved in the work.
The Government is also a major developer in Singapore, accounting for about 60% of annual construction output. We will take the lead.
Over the past few months, BCA and MOM have been actively engaging industry stakeholders on proposals to further improve safety outcomes for the sector. I would like to thank you for your invaluable inputs to these proposals.
I am pleased to announce that we will place heavier emphasis on safety in public sector construction tenders in the following ways.
First, we will ensure that stakeholders involved in a project have a shared stake in improving safety outcomes.
Today, we have a Safety Disqualification (or SDQ) framework that disallow companies with poor safety performance to take part in public sector construction tenders. When it was first implemented last October, the SDQ framework applied to the main contractor and their immediate subcontractors, and for projects valued at $3mil and above.
There have been suggestions for these requirements to extend to all stakeholders involved on-site, not just the main contractors and their immediate sub-contractors. This is because construction projects typically involve many layers of subcontractors working together at the same site.
Take the following fatal incident as an example. During lifting operations, the rear of a crawler crane knocked over a nearby pallet containing gas cylinders. Unfortunately, the gas cylinders hit a worker, and he suffered a fatal injury. Both the main contractor and subcontractor were prosecuted. The investigations found that the subcontractor, who oversaw the lifting operations, had not implemented an adequate plan to ensure works were carried out safely. The main contractor was similarly at fault, given the failure to implement a permit-to-work system for these high-risk activities.
That is why we intend to impose high standards of safety to more parties involved in the works so as to incentivise better worksite management and a safer working environment. We will also consider extending the SDQ framework to smaller projects. In 2022, last year, almost 40% of public sector projects were below $3mil.
In gist, we will extend the Safety Disqualification Framework to more parties, including sub-contractors involved in a project, and consider this for smaller value projects. MOM and BCA are working out the details. In doing so, we will be mindful to not impose overly onerous requirements on smaller projects and contractors.
Second, we will assign greater weightage to safety when evaluating tenders. Today, for public sector construction projects valued at $3mil and above, the minimum weightage of safety-related criteria in tender evaluations must be at least 3% of the overall score.
Going forward, we will enhance this in three ways: One, we will raise the minimum weightage of safety-related criteria in tender evaluations to at least 5% of the overall score. Two, we will extend the requirement to smaller projects, valued at $1mil and above. Three, the safety-related criteria will be expanded. The current criteria typically evaluates a contractors’ past safety performance or safety track record. We will expand it such that contractors who demonstrate plans to adopt safer construction methods or deploy WSH technologies to improve risk monitoring and WSH outcomes, will be assessed more favourably.
Overall, this aims to incentivise contractors to consider and propose safety enhancements during the planning stage when submitting their safety proposals.
We will also introduce a bonus scheme for larger projects. This will reward contractors financially for good safety performance during the construction phase. Contractors may use the rewards to recognise the efforts of on-site workers in upholding good safety standards, to create a self-reinforcing cycle of a strong safety culture.
Some agencies, such as JTC, have already adopted such schemes. JTC sees this as an important means to build trust and foster a strong safety culture in their projects.
In the past, workers were hesitant to share about their difficulties in adhering to certain safety requirements or highlight their observations of unsafe practices and near misses for fear of facing penalties.
Since the incentive scheme was introduced five years ago, JTC observed that contractors and their workers have been more open with the JTC project team. This allows JTC to work more closely with contractors to put in place measures to enhance safety on the worksite. For instance, in one of the projects, workers raised a concern that due to the heat in the enclosed workspace, their safety eyewear would occasionally fog up. JTC worked with the site supervisors to install fans in those areas.
This is a simple solution – but one that could only be deployed if all parties, including workers, have a shared responsibility and were incentivised to speak up. Private developers, like Keppel Land and City Developments Limited (or CDL), have also implemented similar incentive schemes and found them useful in promoting safety.
Keppel Land rewards safety bonuses to contractors who consistently deliver good safety performances. CDL has also been paying out bonuses to contractors who achieve excellent WSH performance. So, I am glad that we will be mainstreaming this practice in the public sector.
Finally, we will encourage contractors to leverage technology to achieve the twin goals of enhancing safety and raising productivity. This is in line with our efforts articulated in the refreshed Built Environment Industry Transformation Map (BE ITM).
The push towards Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (or DfMA) will automate much of the high-risk manual labour today and shift more work off-site, away from construction sites to safer factory-like settings. At the same time, digital tools and technologies can be used to enhance safety.
For instance, Dragages Singapore Pte Ltd uses digital incident reporting tools to capture and monitor safety incidents, including near misses. Having the data aggregated on a single digital platform allows project members to analyse trends, identify areas for where more attention is needed and take action to prevent future incidents.
These learnings are also shared with subcontractors so that all members involved in the project and works can benefit.
Dragages also uses the electronic Permit to Work (or e-PTW) system in their operations. Rather than having to do a manual verification of workers’ qualifications for high-risk work activities, the system reduces the time taken for the submission and approval process, and avoids human errors.
Mr Nagarajan, a Senior Environment Health Safety (EHS) Manager in Dragages, also shared that the firm has integrated this into other work management portals, allowing site supervisors to easily identify workers with the necessary qualifications before they are deployed, especially for high-risk activities.
Given the safety and productivity benefits of mature WSH technologies like the ePTW system, we will require them to be adopted in relevant construction projects. The Government will continue to support the sector via grants, like the Productivity Solutions Grant (or PSG), which provides up to 50% co-funding support for pre-approved solutions to local SMEs.
Since 2020, the PSG has supported over 800 construction and facilities management firms to adopt pre-approved solutions that support a range of functions, including workplace safety. I encourage our friends and partners to tap on available grants. You can find more information online or feel free to approach my BCA colleagues.
Call to Action
MOM and BCA will follow up with more details of the enhancements I have spoken about. These will also be featured in the Workplace Safety and Health Guidelines for Procurement in the Construction Industry, which have been developed by an industry workgroup, comprising members from IES, SCAL, SPM and STAS.
The workgroup co-chaired by Mr Kelvin Pek from REDAS and Mr Reggie Lim from ST Telemedia, worked closely with agencies to collate good practices for enhancing safety considerations in tender processes from both public and private sector developers. The guide has been released for public consultation and can be found on WSH Council’s website.
I encourage everyone to review this guide and consider if there are good practices you may wish to incorporate into your projects. At the same time, do give us your input so others can learn from your experiences too.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, I wish all of you a fruitful conference and look forward to your support in safeguarding workplace safety and health. Thank you very much.