At the conference on the occasion of the building supervision jubilee

On 25 September 2008 at the seat of the Chief Office for Building Control in Warsaw there was a conference titled “80 years of building supervision in Poland”. It was attended by representatives of Parliament, academic circles as well as authorities and institutions cooperating with building supervision. The National Labour Inspectorate was represented by its head – Tadeusz Jan Zając.

Chief Labour Inspector congratulated the management and employees of the Office for Building Control excellent achievements and rich tradition.

There is no doubt – he said – that the authority for construction supervision is a particularly important partner for the labour inspection. After all, supervision of safety and public order in the construction process cannot be separated from supervision and inspection of work safety and labour protection. One determines the other, especially in construction which is such a difficult sector of national economy all over the world and is typified by a high level of occupational risk.

Tadeusz Jan Zając emphasised that reduction of occupational risk in construction has for years been one of the priorities in the National Labour Inspectorate’s activity. He talked about close relations between the labour inspectorate and construction supervision based on the implementation of the agreement on cooperation. Its effects comprise, among others, joint visits to construction sites by inspectors from both offices and inspections of the technical state of buildings and workrooms. Inspectors cooperate also while determining the causes and circumstances of building catastrophes which occurred on the premises of workplaces.

– Only well-coordinated activities of all parties involved in the construction process can bring expected results such as construction safety and work safety – said Chief Labour Inspector Tadeusz Jan Zając. – I wish such effects to the building control authorities and also to the institution which I have the honour to manage, because our common objective is safer implementation of construction investments.

Papers presented during the conference focused on the development and chosen aspects of construction legislation, the issue of performing independent technical functions in construction, the state on construction materials market, and the cooperation of construction supervision with research institutes.

Several employees of construction supervision were presented state medals for their meritorious work.

At present authorities for construction supervision employ about 3.2 thousand persons. On average, 156 new construction sites and 100 buildings commissioned for use fall per one inspector of the construction inspectorates in counties. On the other hand, inspection of construction materials placed on the market in Poland is conducted by about 100 inspectors from the provincial inspectorates and the Chief Office for Building Control.