The total number of reportable accidents, which fell by 18% over the 12 months to June 2010, again reduced by 5.1% to 59 in 2011. The Group accident frequency rate also decreased from 0.22 to 0.19, and again met the Group key performance indicator established for the financial year. The Group accident incidence rate also reduced, for the fourth consecutive year, to 4.37 (2010: 5.3).

We received over a 200 visits from the Health and Safety Executive throughout the year which led to two Prohibition Notices served on one site. Whilst unfortunate, this was a marked improvement on the three Prohibition Notices and three Improvement Notices received last year. The matters arising on this one particular site were closed out promptly in direct liaison with the HSE and have, indeed, been used to spearhead improvements in roofing works in the wider housing industry. There were no health and safety prosecutions of the Group in this period.

Since 2008 the Group has been working hard to reduce the number of service strikes on our sites, and set challenging targets of reductions year on year. This year we convened a Service Strike Review Group consisting of Divisional Managing Directors and the Safety Team to ensure this continued risk was receiving the appropriate focus.

For the second consecutive year a ‘stop the job’ day was held across the entire Group to focus attention on health and safety initiatives.