This amendment, as before stated, renders Part 4 of the Abstract inoperative.
The Notice of Accidents Act also imposes new duties upon employers. Section 5 reads as follows:—
Sec. 5.—(1) If the Secretary of State considers that, by reason of the risk of serious injury to persons employed, it is expedient that notice should be given under this Act in every case of any special class of explosion, fire, collapse of buildings, accidents to machinery or plant, or other occurrences in a mine or quarry, or in a factory or workshop, including any place which for the purpose of the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, with respect to accidents is a factory or workshop, or is included in the word ‘factory’ or ‘workshop,’ or is part of a factory or workshop, the Secretary of State may by order extend the provisions of this Act requiring notice of accidents to be given to an inspector to any class of occurrences, whether personal injury or disablement is caused or not, and, where any such order is made, the provisions of this Act shall have effect as extended by the order.
(2) The Secretary of State may by any such order allow the required notice of any occurrence to which the order relates, instead of being sent forthwith, to be sent within the time limited by the order.
The Secretary of State, acting under this section, issued an order in December 1906 which stipulates that such an occurrence as the breaking of a rope, chain, or other appliance used for raising or lowering persons or goods by means of mechanical power should be forthwith notified on Form 43 by the occupier of the factory to the Inspector for the district.
REPORT BY AN INSPECTOR OF THE HOME OFFICE ON BUILDING ACCIDENTS
Under Sections 79-85 of the Factory and Workshop Act the Secretary of State is empowered to make regulations for any description of manual labour that is dangerous or injurious to health, or dangerous to life or limb. No regulations for the building trade have as yet been made, but in the Chief Inspector of Factories’ Annual Report for 1905 a number of suggestions made by a member of the factory department were printed for the guidance of those engaged in building operations. They are as follows:—
1. All working platforms from which it is possible for a workman or material, tools, and plant to fall a distance of more than 8 feet should, before employment takes place thereon, be provided throughout their entire length both on the inside and outside, and at the ends—
(a) with a guard-rail fixed at a height of 3 feet 6 inches above the scaffold boards;
(b) with boards fixed so that their bottom edges rest on or abut to the scaffold boards. The boards so fixed shall rise above the working platform not less than 7 inches.