Fatal and major construction accidents: a comparison between Scotland and the rest of Great Britain

Records, for the period 1997–2002, show that the rates of both fatal and majorconstruction accidents are consistently higher in Scotland than in GreatBritain as a whole. By proportion, Scottish fatal accident rates are, on average, 50% more than the rest of Britain; and major accident rates 15% more. This paper reports on a 12-month Contract Research Report on behalf of the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive, conducted by the authors in collaboration with BOMEL consultants and the Institute of Employment Research at Warwick University. The aim of the research was to investigate these statistics and any underlying issues that may be linked to the apparent higher accident rates. The aim of this paper is to outline the methods used and discuss the most salient findings of the research.