The ILO-SAWS SCORE Piloting Program was kicked off in Deqing County, Zhejiang Province in April 2016 aiming at improving productivity, competitiveness, sustainability and working conditions of local SMEs. Deqing County, as one of the counties piloting SCORE Program identified by SAWS, has attracted a lot of attention from the national SAWS and other local SAWS in the country.

To date, ten local SMEs in Deqing have registered SCORE Training, among which five have completed all the activities under SCORE Training Modules on Workplace Cooperation, and Occupational Safety and Health at Work. Training, coaching and consulting is still on-going in the other five factories.

The distinctive difference of the SCORE Training Program in Deqing is that Safety Inspectors from local SAWS were invited to join the local business development service providers to participate in the two days intensive SCORE TOT training. After the interactive group training, a consultation team involving one local business development service provider and one Safety Inspector from SWAS was formed to carry out consulting services for participating factories.

Safety Inspectors, normally visiting factories on a regular basis, as usual would identify regulatory compliance issues during their factory walk-through and impose punishments. SCORE, obviously changed the way that the Safety Inspectors usually work.

“SCORE provided an effective approach and a powerful tool for us to make the current OSH management system better. SCORE remarkably improved the efficiency of safety inspection work and increased the competitiveness of SMEs in Deqing,“ said Chen Yongming, Vice Governor of Deqing County, “We are confident that more factories will have interests to join SCORE and appreciate its effectiveness.”

Experience sharing was held from perspectives of Safety Inspectors, representatives of participating factories, and business development service providers as well. Positive changes that SCORE has brought to workers, factories and Safety Inspectors are favorable.

“SCORE brought new ideas for us to manage occupational safety and health in SMEs”, said Mr. Fang Wenhua, Director of local SAWS, “As the pilot program has revealed SCORE works well in SMEs. It has strengthened the capacity of the Safety Inspectors, and mobilized innovation of workers to identify hazards and find solutions in SMEs.”

Based on the success achieved and best practice generated by the pilot program, an ambitious goal has been set during the meeting that the ILO-SAWS SCORE Project will reach 500 SMEs located in Zhengjiang Province in the coming years.
He also pointed out that “It is high time to consider development of a market place for local business development service providers to offer SCORE Training and counselling services for SMEs in the long run”.