Most dangerous occupations

Construction Fishing Mining Factory work

Construction is the most dangerous area in which to work, followed by fishing. Both are much more dangerous than either mining or working in factories.

It is always hard to know why deaths rise - in hard times, firms get accused of cutting corners to save money, while in prosperous times, the allegation is that the pressure is on to finish a job to get onto the next one.

Times now are prosperous and construction sites are bustling, built on millennium money and an economy that is growing fast.

But competition remains fierce so the pressures are still on the companies to keep costs down.

Increasing accidents

The Health and Safety Commission is now targeting the big firms to get the number of deaths down.

In the past, it has identified the small contractors as the culprits but now it is switching its sights.

One official said about the larger firms: "We want them to stop going for the lowest quote, which runs the risk of attracting cowboys and increasing accidents.

"They should be concentrating on getting value for money which means taking quality and safety into account."

Changes in the law are on the way. The government wants all big companies to appoint a director with specific responsibility for safety within his or her firm.

Corporate manslaughter is very difficult to prove

If people died on the company's business, then the director would face the questions and ultimately the penalty.

Part of the problem has been that corporate manslaughter is very hard to prove.

Prosecutions against the companies involved in the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, the King's Cross fire and the Clapham and Southall train crashes all failed because of the difficulty in identifying any individual who was "the embodiment of the company" directly responsible for safety.

Deaths down overall

Only where a company is so small that the individual at the top could be said to be personally negligent could the firm be prosecuted.

That may now change. On the bright side, deaths at work overall are falling.

The rise in construction deaths masks a fall throughout the rest of industry. In the last year, a total of 218 people died compared with 253 the year before.

But all occupations are much safer than they were at the turn of the century.

In the closing years of the 1890s, there was an average of 60 deaths a month in British factories - 30 times worse than it is today.