“Get the HSE out of their offices and back on the road”

Much heated discussion has been taking place on the Workplace Law forum today, following last night’s Panorama programme, ‘May contain nuts’. Far from employers criticising the health and safety profession, however, for topple testing gravestones and banning conkers, our members believe the HSE and others in the health and safety profession aren’t taking the issue of risk to the public far enough.

“I believe the HSE should increase their manpower and get out to more and more sites,” says Colin Welch. “I haven't had any of my sites visited in the past 14 months (do I really want to you may ask?) – well it would help me greatly if the HSE did indeed get involved with our work, we haven't killed anyone yet so things must be going ok for us but a visit or two would at least bolster my position and keep our staff alert and working safely – just in case!

Get the HSE out of their cushy offices and back on the road – just like the old factory inspectors. Bring it on, I would welcome it!!”

Supporting this opinion is Mike Booth who adds, “My main concern is that not so long ago we used to have 'experts' who would teach us all H&S and take responsibility for the subject. The same for the Fire Regulations; a qualified Fire Officer with years of experience in his field would check out buildings to ensure they complied with those Regulations. Then came along the RRO which took that responsibility away from the 'experts' and handed it to everyone in the country. Before you say, "well we should all take responsibility for H&S", I agree with you, but everyone in the country is not trained and does not necessarily understand what H&S is and how it really involves them.”

Alan Cox, a Fire Consultant agrees.

“There can be little doubt that self regulation is a much better way to go than the prescriptive legislation that was around a few years ago,” he says. “The problem for companies and individuals is that there is no real definition of “reasonably practicable” which is found in almost all fire / health and safety regulations – if you look in the dictionary it will say something like “having sound judgement; moderate; ready to listen to reason; not absurd; not greatly less or more than might be expected”. This of course is not very helpful when you are trying to decide if you need another fire escape or if you think you may have to provide new flat screen monitors in your call centre to replace CRT screens which employees say they cannot see properly.”

Booth reiterates this point, saying, “All the Government has done is shift the responsibility from the 'experts' to the 'untrained' and expected the infrastructure to build and look after itself. I think the principle of each of us looking after H&S is good, but you wouldn’t jump in the river if you didn’t know how to swim, would you, so why are the people not trained?”

David Ireland, a Risk Management Specialist in the NHS for over 11 years, “whole heartedly agrees” that “proportionality is the correct response to safety. This is the base principle of the risk assessment and risk management process; I just wish that HSE Inspectors would think like that. Having experienced a few team visits from HSE Inspectors over the years and have done battle with them, [I have found] they do tend to have very narrow view points, especially when they have topics that they are required to inspect.

“The HSE Inspectors have in the past forced us to spend money on areas of risk that are significantly lower than other areas of greater risk – therefore potentially leaving high risks with no resources to mitigate the risk.”

It is this misunderstanding of the important risks, and over-emphasis on risks that take care of themselves, that has given the health and safety profession such a bad name, declares David Sharp, Workplace Law’s Managing Director. Referring to items picked out in the documentary, he says:

“The infamous story about school kids needing to wear goggles to play conkers was overblown years ago. The architects’ need to fit a handrail at his local church “on health and safety grounds” seemed ill informed. And the implication that an orchestra – or indeed the whole of the West End theatre industry – could be threatened by “health and safety” for breaching noise levels was just preposterous.

“This last point was mischievous. Surely any health and safety professional would have explained that exposure levels were calculated over an eight-hour average. And actually, lots of people in the entertainment industry do suffer from noise induced hearing loss – though few of them probably play the lead violin in an orchestra.

“The Panorama programme was a welcome addition to the debate about health and safety overkill, but I think in many ways its target was misdirected. The health and safety industry is often just the fall guy in all of this. The true villain is surely the insurance industry, boosted by the ‘no win, no fee’ blame and claim culture.”

Agreeing with this statement is Mike Pinsent, who adds:

“I feel that health and safety is becoming a spaghetti of do's, don't's and don't move without training. Responsibility, alertness and common sense (which are primary for genuine safety), may be diminished which can lead to an increase in accidents that aren't in the handbook.

I believe that it is a proven fact that if something looks dangerous, people take extra care and accidents are rare. We don't expect danger unless there is a sign. It is when people assume that something is safe – or that someone else is responsible for it being safe ...”

To watch David Sharp’s full comment piece, please click here.