Literature Review

Local Accident related to Truss-out Scaffold

Falls are the most common accidents in the construction industry and it was obvious that it

was the reason of many serious injuries and fatalities (Xinyu Huang and Jimmie Hinze,

2013)(Christopher A. Janicak, 1998). The using truss-out bamboo scaffolding was always the

factor of the fatal accident. In Hong Kong, difference type of accident were associated with

truss-out scaffolding, there are different cases in various conditions deriving the fatal

accident. Basically, the common cause of fatal accident was related to worker fall form high,

poor workmanship on the installation, collapse of working platform and lack of safety

awareness during works.

For instance, the victim slipped from the truss-out scaffolding due to the wet surface and

not sufficient safety measures such as safety harness with no independent life line anchor to

secure fixing point (Apple Daily, 2007/11/6). Other than the insufficient safety awareness,

the poor workmanship is another problem; an anchor bolt, for fixing the supporting frame

of truss-out scaffolding, installed in secure manner and the working platform could not

support the loading and collapse cause the worker fall form height (Oriental Daily,

2010/8/13, 2011/2/24, 2014/3/19).

Apart from the newspaper report, the statistic from Labour Department showed that Fall

of person from height was the highest type of accident in which cause fatality (Labour

Department, 2013).
Risk Factors for Scaffold Related Accidents

For those figures and reports, some researchers and institutions had done some studies on

defining the cause of those accidents. Some conclusion they had made, many falls are

related to the environmental factor such as the working surface to the facility layout

conditions (Xinyu Huang and Jimmie Hinze, 2013) and the walking surface of the working

platform (National Research Council, 1985) (Christopher A. Janicak, 1998); most accidents

took place from/with scaffold, also the misjudgment of hazardous situation is the common

type of human error involving fall (Xinyu Huang and Jimmie Hinze, 2013). Other than the

mentioned researchers findings, NIOSH (1992) suggest that the fatal falls result from

defective scaffold equipment, improper installation or operation, improper training, or

failure to use appropriate personal fall-protection, and Christopher A, Janicak (1998) find

that the failures of guardrails giving way, lanyards, harnesses and their attachment breaking

are the cause of substantial frequent of death due to the fall protection system for working

at high.

Unsafe Conditions Caused Fall from Height

Toole (2002) found that accidents in construction industry related unsafe site conditions,

which were due to inadequate training, lack of safety control, shortage of personal safety

equipments supplying, risky methods or task design, workers not working with provided

safety devices and bad attitude on safety.

Also Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) found that the causes of fall injuries were due to

overlook the unsafe conditions, which appeared prior an activity commenced or which

appeared after an activity commenced.

Cause of Fall from Height due to Poor Safety Management

Improper use of scaffold equipment and fall protection systems might cause the workers

suffering injury or die. The Centers for Disease Control (1992) identified that the reasons of

people falling from height causing fatal accidents, which were damaged scaffold tools, false

operation or installation, workers without appropriate training, or working without using fall

protection device.

Also Jacicak (1998) found that insufficient in-situ protection was the major identified causes,

and other minor identified causes were structure failure, inadequate work surface and

defective fall protection devices.

Huang and Hinze (2003) concluded that not less than 30% of the fall accidents were due to

improper or insufficient use of fall protection devices and defective safety devices.

Malcolm (2000) concluded that there was a relation between the fall accident and improper

safety management, in which the factors were insufficient monitoring and management,

insufficient proper training, and providing unsuitable devices or executing with risky working

procedures.
Regulatory Framework in Hong Kong

Safety legislation

In Hong Kong, the laws related to governing the safe use of truss-out scaffold in

construction sites are under the following categories:

A. The Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance (FIUO), Chapter 59 and its subsidiary

regulations relevant to construction works;

B. The Buildings Ordinance (BO), Chapter 123, it focus on handling the pre-construction

planning and design and construction of buildings and its subsequence works, also makes

provision for the rendering safe of dangerous buildings and land.

The FIUO was formed at 1955, up to this moment, this ordinance stills the principal

legislation that governs health and safety in the Hong Kong construction industry. The

enforcement of this ordinance is mainly by the inspectorate of the Lobour Department. The

power of amendment and making regulation and approving the code of practice, which are

applicable to the local construction industry, especially for bamboo scaffolding, are given by

this regulation to the Commissioner for Labour Department.

Some of the major safe use of bamboo scaffold (including truss-out scaffold) related

subsidiary legislations under Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance were as

following.

Factory and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance, Chapter 59

Some major changes in the clauses were introduced via the amendment of FIUO at 1989. In

the Section 6A, it is clearly expressed that reasonably practicable steps shall be taken by the

proprietors to all person employed, in order to eliminate the risk on health and safety. In

the Section 6B, it is clearly expressed that the workers owe any person a duty to exercise

reasonable care at work. Also the workers and employers collaborate in ensuring the

compliance of the safety measures in the workplace.

The scope of legislation is to the incidents, which may occur during the time that workers

implementing their duty as construction worker outside the construction site, extended by

the clause in the Section 6C.

Construction Sites (Safety) Regulation (CSSR), Chapter 59I

The Construction Sites (Safety) Regulation was published in 1978; some major sections

related to working at height and safe use of scaffold are shown as below:

Part VA: Scaffolds, Working Platform and Ladders: These regulations mainly focus on

preventing accident when working at height. Labour Departments Code of Practice

on Scaffolding Safety should be read conjunctly with these regulations, as the Code

of Practice provide the practical advice based on the regulations on scaffolding, no

matter wooden, steel or bamboo.

In addition to the above section, the Legislative council approved a major amendment,

Construction Site (Safety) (Amendment) Regulation 2003, on 26th November 2003 and it

was published in Gazette on 28th November 2003 to take immediate effect. In that

amendment, there are some major provisions. The most critical breakthrough is the

extension of the duties, which imposed to the principle contractor under most provisions of
the principle regulation to all contractor or sub-contractor who has direct control over any

construction work on the site. Even thought the all contractor or sub-contractor who has

direct control over any construction work on the site will bear the responsible of offence the

regulation in implementing the works, the principal contractor will also not release their

duty on ensure the safety and health work environment in the construction site.

Other than the extension of the duties of principal contractor, there are 2 main provisions

approved in that amendment, amendment on Regulation 38A to prescribe the specific

measures required to ensure the safety of places of work and amendment on Regulation 44

to prescribe the specific measures required to effectively guard a prime mover, transmission

machinery and other machinery.

Factory and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Officer and Safety Supervisors) Regulations,
Chapter 59Z

As a move to encourage the industry on forming a self-regulatory framework in a safety

management, these regulations were published in 1986. Latterly in 1994, an amendment

was made on requirement of hiring Registered Safety Officer and Safety Supervisor. For a

contractor who is the proprietor of one or more construction sites and employed 100 or

more employees, a Registered Safety Officer should be employed. For a contractor who is

the proprietor of one or more construction sites and employed 20 or more employees, a

Safety Supervisor should be employed. Both are helping the contractor in promoting the

safety and help of workers. Providing safety and health advice, finding and reporting

possible hazards, investigating dangerous materials and accidents in the workplace are the

major duties of them.

Building Ordinance, Chapter 123

This is a building and building works control ordinance instead of labour. However, this

Ordinance perceived some indirect and supplementary on the issue of labour safety. Section

8 of this Ordinance is an example, in this section, the registration of building contractors is

require the applicant must satisfy the Building Authority on the adequacy of its

management structures, the appropriate experience and qualifications of it personnel. The

site safety history is a critical consideration on affecting the approval of the registration.

Another example on indicating the indirect restriction on safety should be Section 14 and

14A of this ordinance. In these sections, it set out the rules on requiring submission of

building plans and supervision plan for approval and consent of the commencement of the

building works and street works. The technical memorandum of supervision plan is

authorized by the Section 39A of this regulation for giving practical advice on applying site

supervision plan under Section 14 and 14A. The memorandum came into operation on 22nd

of December 1997, and latterly replaced by a vision with amendment at the end of 2005. In

the revision of 2005, the registered geotechnical engineer was put into the management

and communication structure. The latest version should be the Technical Memorandum of

Supervision Plan 2009, it was issued to replace the version 2005 and in effect on the 31st

December 2010. This revision incorporated amendments on site supervision plan system

and the supervision requirement on carrying out the minor works. Section 39A of this

Ordinance set out the requirement, principal and operation of supervision plan. Ensure the

site safety supervision is one of the objectives of the plan. In the section 4 of the

Memorandum, it clear state that the purpose of preparing a supervision plan and

supervising the carrying out of building works or street works by relative parties, under
Section 4 and Section, safety management of building works or street works comprises

controlling hazards from building works or street works so as to mitigate the risk to (i) the

workers on site, (ii) all persons around the sites; and (iii) adjoining buildings, structures and

land, hereafter referred to as site safety supervision (Section 4, TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM

FOR SUPERVISION PLANS 2009).The authorized person is instructed to submit a supervision

plan prior the consent application, it is required under the Section 14A of this Ordinance. In

this supervision plan, the management, communication structure, comprising of authorized

person, registered structural engineers and technical competent persons should be clearly

defined and included in the plan.

Code of Practice

In local legislative framework, code of practice is acting as a role of supplementary

guidance. Under many circumstances, the legislation provision gives the fundamental

direction on the legal compliance, but the condition may change form time to time and it is

hard to amend the provision frequently due to the time-consuming legislative amendment

process. To deal with such challenge, the Commissioner of Labour Department is

empowered to approve the code of practice for the changing of technology and work

condition.

Some major code of practice issued by the Commissioner for Labour Department under the

authorization by the law, which is providing the guidance on working at height and

scaffolding, especially the truss-out scaffolding, are listed as following:

1. Code of Practice for Bamboo Scaffolding Safety

 This code of practice is issued by Commissioner of Labour Department under the

authorization by the Section 7A of the FIUO. It provides practical guidance for the

compliance of the requirements about general duty of a proprietor and person

employed, which were given in the section 6A and 6B of the FIUO respectively. In

addition to FIUO, the criteria in CSSR regarding the working safety on bamboo

scaffold are also included.

2. Code of Practice for Metal Scaffolding Safety

This is a code of practice issued by the Commissioner of Labour Department under

the authorization by the Section 7A of the FIUO. It provides practical guidance for

the compliance of the requirements about the metal scaffolding safety to

proprietors and contractors of relevant industrial undertakings to comply with the

legal requirements under the provision the Part VA and Schedule III of CSSR.

In addition to the Labour Department, the Building Department also issue some code of

practice and design guide on construction safety, especially the bamboo scaffolding.

3. Code of Practice for Site Supervision

 The Code of Practice for Site Supervision is a Code of Practice issued by the Buildings

Department under BO. It aims to give guidelines to Authorised Persons, Registered

Structural Engineers, Registered Geotechnical Engineers, Registered Contractors and

other personnel in the building industry for the preparation of supervision plan. It

guides such persons in conducting their duties on prescribed supervision and other

site supervision matter. And it is aim at construction site safety according to the

technical competent person aspect, which may involve the scaffolding matters.

4. Guidelines on Design and Construction Bamboo Scaffolding

This guideline is issued by the Buildings Department and aims to give good method

for the structural design and erection of bamboo scaffolds, which are commonly

adopted in Hong Kong. The target of guideline is the structural safety and stability of

bamboo scaffolds at good level during their lifetime. In this connection, not only the

design of the bamboo scaffold mainframe is included, but also include some

technical requirements on scaffold elements such as putlogs, nylon strips, drilled-in

anchors and steel brackets. It also provides the good example on truss-out

scaffolding design.

Policy Affecting Construction Industry in Hong Kong

In order to tackle the problem of deficient maintenance of old building and keep the

buildings safe over a longer period of time, two schemes are introduced in BO, which are

Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme (MBIS) and Mandatory Window Inspection

Scheme (MWIS). According to the code of practice for MIBS and MIWS published by

Building Department, inspection, assessment, repair and rectification should include the

external building elements such as finishes, claddings, fins and metal louvers. For the said

works, bamboo scaffolds shall be designed and erected in accordance with GDCBS and

COPBSS, which are issued by Building Department and Labour Department respectively.