A failure to look beyond historical statistics on construction product safety when regulating the market could lead to an “accumulation of deaths”, the government has been warned.
A report commissioned by the Office for Product Safety and Standards, published on Monday (20 January), says that relying solely on incident data could produce “unacceptable” outcomes.
The study warns that, for “some management teams”, historical information has been “the only tool used to detect dangerous conditions”. This has been witnessed in the lead up to some major events with multiple fatalities, it adds.
The report says: “Test cases confirm that incident data has very limited predictive value in relation to tragic, rare, multiple-fatality events.”
According to the study, “effective market surveillance by product manufacturers is more likely to identify safety issues than analysis of forensic reports and incident statistics by the regulators”.
“Increasing the number of reports of concern could be a powerful route to reduce the lead time to identify the presence of intolerable product risks,” it adds.
“Relying on incident data alone will lead to an accumulation of deaths, serious injuries and economic loss that might be considered unacceptable (before regulatory action is prompted).”
The study says research on real-life examples illustrates that almost all product recalls in functioning systems start from market surveillance by the manufacturer or reports of concern.
“In a functioning system the costs of product issues to economic actors are too high for them not to invest in market surveillance; and the safety culture of the industry is such that professionals feel an ethical obligation to report concerns.
“Regulatory actions can shape and encourage both behaviours.”
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Greg Pitcher