Safety Awareness Measures

Personnel working in specific high-risk trades are required to obtain the Silver Card training and certification—ensuring they are made safety-aware and are able to cope with hazardous working activities on site.

Fourteen trades have been identified as requiring workers to hold a Silver Card:

• Painter and Decorator
• Carpenter
• Demolition Worker (Building)
• Plumber
• Bar Bender and Fixer
• Plasterer and Tiler
• Bamboo Scaffolder and Metal Scaffolder
• Construction Materials Rigger
• Rigger and Signaller
• Curtain Wall Installer
• Tower Crane Worker (Erecting, Dismantling, Telescoping & Climbing)
• Concretor
• Tunnel Worker
• Lift Mechanic

We believe that enhancing the safety knowledge of personnel will help sharpen their safety management skills on site. Therefore, we mandate that contractor’s site management and supervisory staff comply with minimum safety training requirements. Staff have already completed the

• Safety Training Course for Site Management Staff (27 hours) or equivalent
• Safety Training Refresher Course for Site Management Staff (7 hours) or equivalent
• Safety and Health for Supervisors (Construction) Course (43 hours) or equivalent
• Enhancement Course for Safety Supervisors (Construction) (12 hours) or equivalent

are also deemed to have satisfied the mandatory safety training requirements.

We specify that ‘tool-box talks’ are provided by contractors to workers engaged on site in new works contracts. The topics of these talks should be relevant to the activities of each particular site and prevailing safety concerns at the time. Contractors shall ensure that tool-box talks are carried out by safety supervisors, foreman or gangers who have received formal training from approved training organisations. This initiative is also linked to the Pay for Safety Scheme.

We have launched two mandatory training programmes to reinforce core competency, knowledge and skills on site safety and health management as follows:

• The Site Safety Training Programme for resident site staff, covering:
  • module A: 2-day basic safety management
  • module B: 2-day basic accident prevention
  • module C: half-day construction safety
  • module D: 1.5-day occupational health

   

• The Safety PASSPORT Training Programme for professional grade personnel/ professional service providers, covering:  
  • module A: 2-day safety management system and safety audit
  • module B: 1-day safe design
  • module C: 1-day safety management tools

   

• The Safety PASSPORT Training Programme for technical grade personnel/ planner and landscape architect, covering:
  • module A: half-day risk assessment
  • module B: 1-day safe design 

We provide incentive payments through the ‘Pay for Safety’ Scheme to encourage more contractors to participate in territory-wide safety campaigns—fostering a culture of safety.

We convene regular safety workshops and an annual site safety forum in conjunction with the members of the Housing Department Site Safety Sub-committee (HDSSSC) to raise safety awareness on thematic safety topics.

To help foster a safety culture we actively engage industry experts and stakeholders, on an on-going basis, to jointly publish and promote best practices on key safety issues. A wide variety of print publications, videos and alerts to promote safety and health have already been released.