Not for the first time in my life, I’ve been proved wrong. So, fist-biting-ly/toe-curling-ly wrong, in fact, that I feel the need to get it off my chest and atone for my mistake...
I wrote a blog last week praising Messrs Grayling, Osborne and Co. for listening to Professor Lofstedt and accepting the findings of his report into UK health and safety. (I know, what was I thinking? I put my uncharacteristically good nature at the time down to a cup of espresso). Not a few hours after posting my caffeine-fuelled blog did George Osborne stitch me up like a proverbial whatsit...you know. Mackerel.
In his Autumn Statement on Tuesday, the Chancellor told the House: “We will cut the burden of health and safety rules on small firms – because we have a regard for the health and safety of the British economy too.”
Steady on there, George. Professor Lofstedt actually went out of his way to pass UK health and safety as fit for purpose. A clean bill of health. A big thumbs up. In the past, he’s even praised IOSH’s Li£e Savings campaign which shows how good health and safety can help the economy, not stifle it. So for the Chancellor to use the good record of UK health and safety as a political football he can kick around the back alleys of Westminster isn’t helpful and is potentially damaging – if not life-threatening to many UK workers who benefit from a health and safety system that’s the envy of the world. And it’s certainly not the opinion of the report’s author who the government chose to head this independent report and who, you may forgiven for thinking, may be a little concerned himself over how the government has chosen to interpret it.
The Chancellor’s colleague, Employment Minister Chris Grayling, also did some breast-beating of his own in Brussels last Wednesday by telling the EU: “There's one simple question at the heart of what we do – will this cost jobs or create jobs?” A rather unsettling undercurrent to his comment there, don’t you think? He and George must have had a chat at Starbucks...
Mr Grayling also announced that the government will go further than the report’s recommendations by indicating that more than 50 per cent of current legislation could be streamlined over the next three years.
I think there’s sufficient concern over these comments to suggest that perhaps the government does have an agenda when it comes to health and safety and are prepared to use Professor Lofstedt’s balanced and well-thought report as a mandate to appease the pro-business lobby and help persuade those sceptical about health and safety to vote favourably at the next election. (What, that election in about three years’ time? That one, yes...).
Anyway, that’s enough of my failings and wrongdoings. What do you think? Is the government going to use Lofstedt’s report for its own agenda? Let us know.
Shaun.
11 comments:
it would be naive (something else to confess ?) to imagine that the thrust of the business lobby is not exactly that : the argument must surely go "we have one of the lowest (if not the lowest) accident records in Europe - and that can only be at a cost to competitiveness"?
and that's difficult to argue against (yes, I know, cost of a life or a limb etc being worth more than any money) but more importantly, I don't think Lofstedt is quite as unequivocal about the culture as you suggest - he draws out the most interesting (and arguable) point of all in saying that we need to re-examine our attitude to risk.
And I look forward to how he proposes to do that. Because out there in the real world, we take calculated risks every second of every day.
Why do we decide some things are safe and others are worth the risk - and what happens when we get it wrong ?
To pick up the Sidney Dekker mantra
where is the line drawn ?
who gets to draw it ?
Really exciting - and dangerous - discussions !
Hi Shaun. Don't beat yourself up about it. I suspect Lofstedt will remain a hot topic for us in the H&S world and will quickly be forgotten by the government - until it suits to have another pop. The Red Tape Challenge will be next - and from what I saw on the web at the time, many of the opinions were positive and FOR H&S, although others reflected the influence of the irreputable insurance / civil back protecting myths which Prof. Lofstedt rightly identified. Cutting the H&S legislation by 50% - well that is good spin, but can easily be achieved by the chopping, tidying and condensing as recommended. There are only really about 20-25 regulations (max at any time) which will genuinely be relevant to most businesses. And often far fewer. But we don't 'sell' this concept, maybe it has suited our profession to make things look as complicated as possible! Politicians also have agendas. Just being provocative.
Shaun. Big people admit they can be wrong - not sure you were at the time. I think that the H&S industry put a very positive spin on this report, but a couple of papers saw it completely opposite. Same report, different 'filters'.
What are WE going to do next, that's the question. One for IOSH. I despair of the dogmatic view of some H&S 'professionals', all of whom have passed exams and most are members of IOSH. What are we teaching and testing? Of we are all so out of synch, why?
As a practitioner I am genuinely concerned about the government's attitude to H&S. I feel that it is a political football and we may lose the enviable position of having a H&S system we can be proud of.
What we need to be careful of, is that the combination of Lord Young's report and Lofstedt's report don't turn into a 'Beeching's Axe', and do to Health and Safety in this country what he did to the railways!
Far too many people are working unsafely, and these 'reports' only fuel the 'I don't need it' brigade.
Don't worry about it Shaun, it's just a different Government spin for a new audience.
Like Ray, my concern about Lofstedt is that bits will be cherry-picked. You can't expect the average self-employed roofer to actually read it, so they will believe what they read (the incomplete story) on the BBC as spun by the DWP.
How many of them won't get past the bit about the self-employed that said "exempt from H&S" and so will never see the "low risk occupations and no risk to others" bit?
Easy to think this won't happen but i still meet lots of small tradesmen who think it's illegal to use ladders because they read it in the Daily Mail
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I have been giving so much thought to the Young and, now Lofstedt reports and, wonder after 35 years as a H&S practitioner that it's me who is wrong. I am guilty, especially in the Mid 70s, when H&S management was extremely poor, of producing a sudden mountain of procedures to comply with HASAWA (Lord Robens and a very credible Act he produced). And from then on with the introduction of EU legislation, primarily MHSAW when risk assessment hit the UK. there was a mad rush for all industries to produce the most confusing RA procedures and forms, to the extent now that suitable and sufficient has dissapeared, with demands from some quarters of industry that an RA produced by a small contractor has to be approved by them, and, if it is not what they think is good eneough to ridicule it and, refuse it, even though it is more than suitable and sufficient. So Lofstedt is right, we need to reduce the paper work, which is now becoming ridiculous, especially where CDM is concerned, and, to start looking at manageing real risks. I am also guilty in the past of producing forms for almost every activity, such as check lists EG: step ladders, scaffolds, step ladders, hand tools, protable tools, you name it. As much of this was not driven by the training I received at Uni, it certainly was driven by major clients and major contractors as part of vendor approval process. I could go on, but would finaly say that we must not water down to much, as our H&S in the UK is the best in Europe, and, we are still trying to improve on statistics. So lets comply with current legislation (With a few adjustments) reduce paper work, and target the reason why people take serious risks to get a job done, because it's not paper work that keeps people alive its the way we behave. I have been trying to use behavioural change as a means to improving H&S, and, it's been a long hard road to get where I am at the moment,because I believe that there is not another piece of legislation or form that I can think of that will reduce accidents. If someone can, let me know.
Presently industry is playing the 'Staying Alive' theme tune to the exclusion of everything else,especially Health and Safety.The bad publicity the profession has received over the years through over precription will not disappear at our command.Perhaps we all took our eye off the ball by chasing the 'no risk work place' when the element of acceptable risk should have been accepted from the beginning -as it always has been by practical Safety Advisers working in the field.Perhaps the profession became too academic
Let us not forget that the act of streamlining will in itself introduce a significant burden
Dear Shaun
As a retired safety practitioner and a simple person myself, I like to simplify much of what I see. And therefore can not understand the confusion! Are all the MPs who are interviewed on the TV and in the papers aware of the difference between civil litigation and 'The Law' the system that they keep quoting and denigrating?
H&S at work is fine when administered correctly 'so far as is reasonably practicable'. That's it, full stop, period. However, the constant fear of civil prosecution for simple 'acts' that have 'some risk' is where the employer (whether Private/Public Company or Local Government) starts to become so concerned that they normally cease those simple 'acts'. This litigious atmosphere is where the Government should intervene and reduce the spurious superfluous actions of the 'I've been injured, what can I get?' compensation brigade.
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