The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has relaunched a health and safety self-audit tool as a key part of MPA’s Safer by Association initiative which provides support to SME’s. It is based on a simple scoring system, which can be used by anyone with a good, basic knowledge of health and safety.

This audit tool is a development of an earlier MPA system but has been upgraded with improved functionality and updated to reflect current good practice. The programme automatically generates a report that identifies areas where some action may be required, or where operators may need to seek some external specialist advice, the system provides the user with a prioritised list based on traffic light colour codes.The MPA self-audit tool is free, and easy to use.

Chris Leese, Chair and Special Advisor – MPA UK Concrete and Special Advisor - Health & Safety said “The audit tool has been developed by MPA in response to member’s request for a system that will enable them to quickly check that they are operating a safe working environment that complies with regulatory requirements. It is suitable for use at sites involved in the manufacture or production across the whole range of mineral products supported by MPA.

It has been designed so that a user can undertake a review of all the key areas that need to be considered when assessing the effectiveness of their health and safety procedures and policies.”

The free audit programme can be downloaded from Safequarry.com. It has been developed by MPA and other safety specialists with extensive experience in the mineral products industry. For further information please contact Tony Entwistle at MPA.

The audit tool is one of the Vision Zero initiatives from MPA to help facilitate compliance and a high standard of implementation of health and safety policies and procedures.

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About the Mineral Products Association:

The Mineral Products Association (MPA) is the trade association for the aggregates, asphalt, cement, concrete, dimension stone, lime, mortar and silica sand industries. With the merger of British Precast, and affiliation of the British Association of Reinforcement (BAR), the British Calcium Carbonate Federation, the Cement Admixtures Assocation (CAA), CONSTRUCT, Eurobitume, MPA Northern Ireland, MPA Scotland and the UK Quality Ash Association (UKQAA), it has a growing membership of 520 companies and is the sectoral voice for mineral products. MPA membership is made up of the vast majority of independent SME quarrying companies throughout the UK, as well as the 9 major international and global companies. It covers 100% of UK cement and lime production, 90% of GB aggregates production, 95% of asphalt and over 70% of ready-mixed concrete and precast concrete production. In 2018, the industry supplied £16 billion worth of materials and services to the Economy. It is also the largest supplier to the construction industry, which had annual output valued at £172 billion in 2018. Industry production represents the largest materials flow in the UK economy and is also one of the largest manufacturing sectors.

For media enquiries, contact Elizabeth Clements at: Elizabeth.Clements@mineralproducts.org.