The Builder's Blog: Software helps west country building firm cope with Health & Safety

Operating from its main office in central Bristol, 21CBS specialises in providing high quality building, electrical and maintenance contracting services across the southern half of the UK and they chose Health & Safety Xpert several years ago to help them with the health and safety aspects of their business.

Established in 2001 the business works across a wide variety of working sectors including education, healthcare, retail, leisure, commercial and high end residential sectors.

Heading the company is boss Mark Taviner who over the years has seen plenty of change in the industry and none more so than within the requirements from a health and safety perspective.
Mark said: “There’s no doubt that the level of documentation and attention to detail on all things related to health and safety has increased but it’s for a very good reason.

Watch Mark's interview now

“The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has maintained quite a robust inspection initiative so building firms like 21CBS has to keep a constant vigilance on its health and safety obligations.

“We have a duty of care to keep our employees and the public safe on site and non-compliance can attract massive fines as well as facing site shut down, criminal prosecutions and in some cases prison sentences if we were proved to be negligible.

“With a 40 history that’s something we definitely don’t want lose.”

Fortunately Mark invested in the latest health and safety software from HBXL. Called Health & Safety Xpert it encourages a more active approach to health and safety and is already used by thousands of builders across the country.

Health & Safety Xpert simplifies the process of producing the right documents. All users have to do is tell the software what they are building and it will present the hazards, suggest control measures to put in place and produce the paperwork accordingly.

It saves builders huge amounts of time, quickly guiding them through the crucial paper work that’s required under current UK law, including the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974, Construction Design Management (CDM) Regulations 2007, The Contractors Health & Safetly Assessment Scheme (CHAS) and provides Method Statements.

For Mark and 21CBS it has made life a lot simpler.

He added: “Not only has it taught me different elements, the health and safety requirements are much better explained with Health & Safety Xpert than any other software.

“We get a lot of surveyors asking for us to help them with their health and safety paperwork especially if it’s Construction Design Management (CDM) related. Some surveyors are asking for H&S policy documents and even for a large contracts.

“In the past preparing health and safety documentation was a very long winded thing but now it is much, much quicker.

“Sometimes in the past if we were working on a large contract we would have to get our H&S advisors to get everything sorted so now it’s obviously saving us a lot of money.”

Joanna Mulgrew, marketing director at HBXL said: “21CBS is an excellent example of how a business can save itself huge amounts of time and money by making the most of technology that’s available to them.

“Anyone working on any building site should look out for hazards and take time to control the risks as best they can. Health & Safety Xpert goes a long way to help manage such risks and help reduce the number of accidents.”

Watch Mark's interview now