Perceived benefits of applying Pay for Safety Scheme (PFSS) in construction - A factor analysis approach

In recent years, construction safety has been a hot topic in Hong Kong. The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has launched different safety measures to improve the prevailing safety performance of the construction industry. The Pay for Safety Scheme (PFSS) has emerged as one of the major safety initiatives launched within the public sector construction industry since 1996. It aims to encourage the safety awareness by taking the contractor's pricing for safety-related items out from the consideration of competitive bidding. The objective is to provide a concise review of the prevailing application of PFSS in Hong Kong in general, and to identify and analyse the key benefits of PFSS in construction through an industry-wide empirical questionnaire survey in particular. Altogether, 145 industrial practitioners who have derived extensive hands-on experience with the PFSS construction projects participated in the survey to indicate their levels of agreement to those 14 key benefits identified which were measured and analysed by factor analysis. The results of factor analysis indicated that the 14 individual benefits of implementing PFSS were consolidated under four underlying factors: (1) Enhancing safety climate and attitude; (2) Promoting effective safety-related communication; (3) Streamlining the safety procedures; and (4) Ensuring adequate safety training. A wider application of PFSS should be encouraged with a view to achieving better safety performance within the industry. It is recommended that a similar scheme to PFSS currently applied in Hong Kong may be developed for implementation in other regions or countries for international comparisons.