Deaths at work guidelines - a date at last

Howard Fidderman, editor of Health and Safety Bulletin (the UK's best H&S publication) has been talking to the Sentencing Guidelines Council about the intended date for the long-awaited guidance for judges on penalties for deaths at work (including corporate manslaugther prosecutions).

The draft that went out for consultation late in 2007 suggested setting guide fines for manslughter at betwee 5% and 10% of a company's annual turnover, which would mean fines potentially topping hundreds of millions for bigger companies. The biggest to date in the UK was £25 million

After the consultation everything went quiet. Now, according to Howard, the SGC are saying there will be a new draft in December and final guidelines inApril next year.

Workstation on a tight budget

I just asked Duncan Abbott of ergonomics consultants Enrico Smog what he thought the effects of a downturn on health and safety spending might be and he sent me a picture of the budget office of the future. What a card.

A very very hazardous pastime

The airline pilots union Balpa has complained about a series of incidents in which people on the ground have been shining laser pointers into the eyes of pilots in planes when they are coming in to land (see here).

I don't subscribe to the we're-all-going-to-hell-in-a-handcart view of society that would see this as just another sign of bigger woes. But as an example of the pointless stupidity of a few creating risk for many, it's hard to beat.

At least when the Cornish villagers used to set up false beacons on the coast to draw ships onto the rocks in centuries past, they did it because they were going to profit from the wrecks. What on earth would these people gain?