Working within building and construction is widely regarded as being high-risk and Saint-Gobain Building Distribution, which employs 12,000 people across more than 950 sites, has made health and safety its top priority with a strong focus on continually improving all aspects of its performance in this crucial area.

The company is also extra vigilant when it comes to its legal obligations as a result of recent legislation such as the Health and Safety (Offences) Act (2009) and the Corporate Manslaughter Act (2008).

SAFEcontractor is a leading third-party health and safety accreditation scheme which helps businesses manage their health, safety and risk. Please visit for more information.

Kevin Crawley, Health and Safety Director at Saint-Gobain Building Distribution UK & Irelandsaid: "We have a strong emphasis on continual improvement in-line with our overall strategy to ensure a safe working environment for our employees and everyone involved with our business. We pride ourselves on demonstrating best practice whilst setting industry standards for health and safety.

"Its important that we keep up-to-date with the latest health and safety legislation and to ensure we have a system in place, such as SAFEcontractor to implement this, especially as the industries in which we work can be dangerous if the correct procedures are not followed. It is also important to be aware that new sentencing guidelines on health and safety offences demonstrate much tougher penalties for companies who are found guilty of a gross breach of care.

"Now we have introduced the SAFEcontractor scheme, we can ensure that there is consistency on all our sites in our approach to assessing the competence and resources of all contractors to work safely. The schemes holistic approach means that managing health and safety issues is more efficient and reduces the risk of unsafe working practices.

SAFEcontractor has streamlined the process of appointing contractors and has alleviated the strain on our internal resource. It has allowed our team to focus mainly on the property maintenance of our numerous sites, which in itself is a huge task.

"We assessed other well known third-party accreditation schemes before selecting SAFEcontractor.

The decision was motivated by the factSAFEcontractor has the greatest synergy with the Health & Safety Executive (HSE)which means we can rest assured that we are compliant to the highest standard in health and safety practice."

Darran Hughes, Business Unit Director for SAFEcontractorsaid:"Large organisations in the building and construction industry need to be extra vigilant when it comes to managing health and safety issues. The industry is often characterised by large hazardous sites employing hundreds of contractors handling heavy materials and operating dangerous machinery in less than ideal conditions. Saint-Gobain Building Distribution understands that because of this, robust measures need to be in place to ensure they deliver on their duty of care in line with more stringent health and safety regulations."

We are now seeing the first prosecutions as a result of the Corporate Manslaughter Act (2008) and with fines seldom less than £500,000,* it pays for businesses, especially those operating in building & construction environments to be vigilant when it comes to their health and safety policies."

Under the SAFEcontractor system, businesses undergo a vetting process, which examines health and safety procedures and their track record for safe practice. Those companies meeting the high standard are included on a database, which is accessible to registered users only via a website: ?ob= " .

SAFEcontractor now has over 16,500 contractor members from more than 120 work sectors that have been audited by one of the company's professional auditors. There are now more than 140 clients signed up to use the services of these contractors, including some of the UK's biggest blue-chip organisations. To view the latest client list please visit: .

* In line with the Sentencing Guidelines Council