Window Clean UK receives international safety award

Directors and employees from a commercial window cleaning company based in Orpington joined health and safety leaders to celebrate their success in winning the British Safety Council’s International Safety Award.

Following tough independent adjudication, Window Clean UK was successful in winning an international safety award from health, safety and environmental training, advisory and audit body, the British Safety Council. This award has been achieved by Window Clean UK for the first time.

Over 1000 businesses from a diverse range of sectors celebrated their achievements at the annual ISA awards ceremony and banquet at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel recently.

Speaking at the awards Brian Nimick, chief executive of the British Safety Council, congratulated the winning organisations and applauded their commitment to preventing workplace injury and ill-health: “You should take great pride in your achievement - an achievement based on skill, hard work, good management and total dedication. We wish you every success in meeting present and future health and safety challenges. These are challenging times. Let’s continue to work together to promote the benefits and give well managed health and safety the credit and reputation it rightly deserves. Our congratulations on your award.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown added his support: “I am very pleased to have this opportunity to send my congratulations to all of the organisations being presented with an International Safety Award today. The British Safety Council plays an important role promoting health, safety and environmental best practice, and these awards - now in their 51st year - bring well deserved recognition to those organisations that set the standard and lead the way. In these difficult times, it is vital that health and safety should not be seen as a cost to cut but as a crucial part of a well-run business that delivers benefits to organisations, employees and the economy alike. I am confident that the Health & Safety Executive’s new strategy for Britain’s workplaces - which underlines the need for a common sense, proportionate approach to risk at the same time as emphasising the importance of personal responsibility - will assist the British Safety Council in the valuable work they do.”

In order to win this award organisations must demonstrate sound and effective health and safety policies, systems and arrangements and a commitment from the shop floor to the boardroom to a positive safety culture and the adoption of behaviours that have safe and healthy working practices at their heart. Training to provide workers with the necessary skills and competence to ensure risks to health and safety are properly controlled is vital too. Winning organisations must detail their senior managers’ health and safety officers’ qualifications and competence and provide information about significant advances they have made in improving health and safety performance over the course of the year.

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