Just been sent some pictures from Eastern European states (I'm guessing ex-Soviet Union or the poorer satellites like Romania) in a viral email, including some humorous ones on a safety theme. The one with the apples is particularly pretty.
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Machine guarding
We're working on a feature on machine guarding and it's reminded me of something an HSE inspector once told me.
He had come across a machine in a bakery where the workers had carefully cut a hole in the wire mesh designed to stop them putting their hands near some fast spinning rotors. Then someone had lined the edges of the wire with padding, to make sure nobody cut their hand reaching in.
He had come across a machine in a bakery where the workers had carefully cut a hole in the wire mesh designed to stop them putting their hands near some fast spinning rotors. Then someone had lined the edges of the wire with padding, to make sure nobody cut their hand reaching in.
Monday, 21 January 2008
Risk and Regulation Advisory Council
On the homepage of the government's new Risk and Regulation Advisory Council, launched last week, the introductory blurb runs:
"On taking office as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown committed to taking the Better Regulation agenda to a new level by focusing upstream at where policy-making engages with risk. This is the critical starting-point of the regulatory process. It is here that culture and process must achieve a better understanding of public risk."
Does anybody have an idea what that means? Any suggestions gratefully accepted. I hope it's not code for "there are a lot of stories in the Daily Express knocking the Nanny State, we've got to be seen to be doing something".
"On taking office as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown committed to taking the Better Regulation agenda to a new level by focusing upstream at where policy-making engages with risk. This is the critical starting-point of the regulatory process. It is here that culture and process must achieve a better understanding of public risk."
Does anybody have an idea what that means? Any suggestions gratefully accepted. I hope it's not code for "there are a lot of stories in the Daily Express knocking the Nanny State, we've got to be seen to be doing something".
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Death of a thousand cuts?
The TUC has just published its submission to the short inquiry into the HSE's work by the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions. The memo makes some good points about the 5% budget cut the executive is expected to make every year till 2011, on top of previous reductions. The statistics aren't new but they gain strength by being collected together and pithily stated. Here's a few excerpts:
"Since 1997, the UK workforce has increased by around 9%. In addition the number of premises that the HSE inspect has gone up by well over 20%. Yet the HSE's workforce has shrunk from over 4,000 to its current number of less than 3,500..."
"The administrative cuts that have taken place have already led to inspectors having less back up and having to reduce the amount of frontline work they do. This has already affected the service that the HSE gives. In the past 4 years the number of inspections fell by 25% while the number of prosecutions fell by 49%. "
"There are more traffic wardens in London than there are inspectors in the whole of HSE's Field Operations Directorate for the whole of Great Britain. It is estimated that the actual number of FOD inspectors is around 700 to cover all the inspections, investigations and prosecutions for all manufacturing (except chemicals manufacturing), the health services, education, all local authority activities, Govt departments and agencies, fire and police services, the defence industry and MOD, agriculture, fairgrounds, domestic gas safety, utilities, ports and docks, and others.
"...the number of inspections has fallen from 116,652 in 1996/7 to 55,195 in 2004/05."
"...under 20% of major injuries are investigated, and under 5% of 'over three day injuries' are investigated"
"The number of prosecutions has fallen from 1986 in 2001/2 to 1141 in 2006/07, although there was a welcome increase in the past year."
This is just the status quo. In an interview with HSW magazine last year, HSE chief Geoffrey Podger said he believed they had absorbed the cuts to date, but that any more would really affect their ability to operate.
This should bother anyone in business who is trying to comply with safety regulations and safeguard their workers. The erosion of an effective enforcement regime threatens them because it gives a competitive advantage to businesses in their sectors who choose to save money by playing fast and loose with employee's health and safety.
The TUC's full submission is at www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-14176-f0.cfm
"Since 1997, the UK workforce has increased by around 9%. In addition the number of premises that the HSE inspect has gone up by well over 20%. Yet the HSE's workforce has shrunk from over 4,000 to its current number of less than 3,500..."
"The administrative cuts that have taken place have already led to inspectors having less back up and having to reduce the amount of frontline work they do. This has already affected the service that the HSE gives. In the past 4 years the number of inspections fell by 25% while the number of prosecutions fell by 49%. "
"There are more traffic wardens in London than there are inspectors in the whole of HSE's Field Operations Directorate for the whole of Great Britain. It is estimated that the actual number of FOD inspectors is around 700 to cover all the inspections, investigations and prosecutions for all manufacturing (except chemicals manufacturing), the health services, education, all local authority activities, Govt departments and agencies, fire and police services, the defence industry and MOD, agriculture, fairgrounds, domestic gas safety, utilities, ports and docks, and others.
"...the number of inspections has fallen from 116,652 in 1996/7 to 55,195 in 2004/05."
"...under 20% of major injuries are investigated, and under 5% of 'over three day injuries' are investigated"
"The number of prosecutions has fallen from 1986 in 2001/2 to 1141 in 2006/07, although there was a welcome increase in the past year."
This is just the status quo. In an interview with HSW magazine last year, HSE chief Geoffrey Podger said he believed they had absorbed the cuts to date, but that any more would really affect their ability to operate.
This should bother anyone in business who is trying to comply with safety regulations and safeguard their workers. The erosion of an effective enforcement regime threatens them because it gives a competitive advantage to businesses in their sectors who choose to save money by playing fast and loose with employee's health and safety.
The TUC's full submission is at www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-14176-f0.cfm
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Parcel of rogues
I was talking to an HSE inspector today for background to a prosecution we'll be reporting soon. We were agreeing that the information was unlikely to be practical use to most readers of HSW magazine or this website since, by a process of self-selection, they've shown an interest in protecting their workers. They can benefit from the hard lessons of other reputable companies who let standards slip in some area, but not from the out-and-out knaves.
(This prosecution involves a polish worker on a construction project crushed by a two-tonne floor slab. The client and the contractor - both companies owned by the same man - had no health and safety policies, no risk assessments or method statements no construction plan and didn't give the workers any protective equipment. They never reported the accident and denied it when the HSE found out by other means. The cherry on the cake is that the company didn't even have planning permission to put the building up in the first place - the local council will decide later this month if it should be torn down.)
The inspector suggested that, even if our readers in construction or any other sector are unlikely to learn much from the details of these companies' failings, this sort of case is well worth reporting because (and i agree with this) it's important for companies who are doing the right thing to see that the HSE is not just going after them for small infringements, but is seriousl y interested in getting the rogues out of the sector.
(This prosecution involves a polish worker on a construction project crushed by a two-tonne floor slab. The client and the contractor - both companies owned by the same man - had no health and safety policies, no risk assessments or method statements no construction plan and didn't give the workers any protective equipment. They never reported the accident and denied it when the HSE found out by other means. The cherry on the cake is that the company didn't even have planning permission to put the building up in the first place - the local council will decide later this month if it should be torn down.)
The inspector suggested that, even if our readers in construction or any other sector are unlikely to learn much from the details of these companies' failings, this sort of case is well worth reporting because (and i agree with this) it's important for companies who are doing the right thing to see that the HSE is not just going after them for small infringements, but is seriousl y interested in getting the rogues out of the sector.
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