Things we forgot

I learned about three unlrelated things this weekend that have passed out of the public consciousness (as far as I know). They are only vaguely relevant to safety, but I offer them anyway.

• There used to be "lorry girls" in the 1930s and 1940s who hung around the cafes on the A roads (precursors of the motorway services) and hitched rides with what would now be called LGV drivers up and down the country for thrills.
• Also in the 30s, there was a group of Americans lured from the depression hit US to the Soviet Union with the promise of work and wages to help industrialise the USSR during Stalin's five-year plans. They were then among the first to come under suspicion in the purges and ended their lives in the gulags. Their story is in The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Jim Tzouliadis, which I strongly recommend.
• Before cows routinely had their horns removed, farmers sometimes used to screw brass knobs (bedknobs or cupboard handles) into the top of them to make them less hazardous.

Louis

Fake testicles at the Olympics site

I went to the Olympic park in East London this morning and i can testify to the fact that it is one very well ordered site. Driving round, all the materials were neatly stored, pedestrians and vehicles were carefully segregated and I don't think it was a show put on for visitors. I've written about these features before, see here but then I had to take them on trust (albeit from ODA safety head Lawrence Waterman, who is as trustworthy as the come); good to see it first hand.

Construction progress is also impressive, the structure of the main stadium is pretty well complete, Zaha Hadid's floating roof for the aquatics centre is taking shape and the velodrome piling is complete. The lift cores for the Olympic village blocks (which will eventually be sold off as des-res flats) are also up, along with the frame of the press centre.

I was there because safety minister Lord McKenzie was touring the occupational helath centre which mixes the standard health surveillance the contractors are obliged to do anyway with some remarkable work (for the construction sector) trying to get builders to take their health seriously. This includes toolbox talks with a pair of fake testicles, to teach labourers to check their own for cancer, and a competition to find the strongest men and women on the site (using a grip test, which is a very good tell-tale for upper limb disorders).

McKenzie said he was impressed. I asked him if this sort of service could be mandated for all major publicly-funded projects, since there are a fair few of those coming up - all those accelerated public works the government has green-lit to help construction and civil engineering firms weather the recession - and the reason it's there on the Olympics is because the ODA as client paid for it.

He said he would go away and "talk about it", which is something.

Louis

Laser precision

For anyone who thought the lack of any talk in the past couple of years about the Artificial Optical Radiation Directive (which basically covers protection from lasers) meant it had gone away, perhaps kicked into the long grass like its sister law on electro-magnetic fields...think again.

We have nine months and counting to bring in UK regulations protecting workers from thin beams of light. The hazards are pretty well covered here by the Management Regs and UK users of powerful lasers used in medicine, welding and glass making and are working to guidelines from the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection which set the same exposure limits as the Directive.

But we can't get out of the requirement to transpose it, anymore than we could with the other "physical agents" Directives on noise and vibration. So the HSE has to run round and draft a set of low-impact regs and try and get them into statute by next April.

Louis

HSE chiefs back at the Select Committee

I sat through HSE chief Exec Geoffrey Podger and chair Judith Hackitt's reappearance before the Work and Pensions Select Committee yesterday and at the end of a couple of hours wasn't really sure why the committee had bothered calling them back.

It may be that there were too many members missing (only 4 of the 11-strong committee were there), but there wasn't much probing. They asked about some of the most important issues: the HSE's new strategy; deaths at refurbishment sites; HSE morale; construction inspectorate numbers; devolving the nuclear inspectorate; the expected impact of the Health and Safety Offences Act on fines (if anyone wants a summary of the questions and answers on these, email me).

But the committee members didn't seem to pursue them very hard. Podger's claim that almost seven years of falling numbers of HSE prosecutions - there was a small rise in 2003/04 - didn't represent a downward trend went pretty much unchallenged, for instance. There was a lot of tentative tugging at loose ends and then moving on.

Given the HSE's dismissive response to the Select Committee's 97 recommendations in its special report on the HSE's work last year, I'd expected them to be a bit more challenging.

Louis

Long time, no write

I've been neglecting this, been very busy, but that's no excuse. Some highlights of the past couple of months:

HSE strategy launch
Then secretary of state of work and pensions James Purnell introducing the strategy in a distracted manner (he resigned the next day). Also Judith Hackitt's thousand-yard stare at the Q&A when Health and Safety Bulletin editor Howard Fidderman asked her why the only employer featured on the video to promote the strategy was Corus, whose health and safety record in recent years has been ... chequered.

RoSPA Congress
Bizarre sight of Tom Mullarkey interviewing HSE chief exec Geoffrey Podger in the manner of Ali G. Mullarkey was trying to make Podger touch fists with him and say "booyakasha!" Podger, wisely, refused to join in.

Safety & Health Expo in Birmingham
Lively, but predictably far quieter than in previous years. About 1/3 down on exhibitors and I'd guess the same on visitors. Difficult to tell how much of this is recession and how much the impact of competition from alternatives such as the Western Publishing regional shows in Sandown, Bolton and, soon, Edinburgh.

First corporate manslaughter charge
Everyone has already covered the ground about the defendant being a small company, so not really the kind the new law was intended to catch, see here. But a secondary wrinkle is the fact that if the prosecution succeeds, without any finalised guidelines on sentencing the judge might decide to follow the last draft guidance and set a fine at 5% of the company's annual turnover. That would be under £20,000, almost certainly lower than if the case had proceeded under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

I'll not leave it so long in future.

Louis

how the other half lived

or died. Just watching The Lost World of Communism on BBC2.

One of the builders on Nicolae Ceausescu's monstrous palace of the people in the centre of Bucharest (for which 30,000 people's homes were demolished) said "Out of my work group of 100, 13 died. Two committed suicide and the rest were killed in accidents."

Podger on competence and targets

I'm at the IOSH conference in Liverpool. Geoffrey Podger just finished a stage interview with Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy and took some pointed questions from the floor on evaluating competence of safety practitioners.

Podger's argument was that if "third sector" organisations such as IOSH and CIEH and IIRSM want to define competence further, they are free to, but the HSE's view is that the definition in the Management Regulations, however loosely drawn, is good enough.

One questioner (in social services) supported him but the general thrust was that HSE could do more.
A delegate from the CIEH told him: "You are going to have to change your attitude and work harder with us to get a definition of competence to get the results you want."
(The results being the improved accident figures the new strategy sets an aim, albeit vaguely.)

On which point, Podger also said earlier in the session that the new strategy would still be tied to the targets set in the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy in 1989. This is confusing as they were 10 year targets (for cuts in accidents self reported work-related illness and working days lost to both) and though they probably won't all be met by 2010 it seems strange to start a new strategy with the old goals. But that's what he said.

"Life is beautiful"

It must be if you are this lucky.

Louis

HSE not on the PR slide for once

The new Electric Works office complex in Sheffield has a three-storey 26-metre corkscrew slide in its atrium, see here, because it's intended to attract the web designers and nu-media firms whose abundant creativity needs decorative expression through pinball machines and children's playground furniture in their workspace.

One of the project's landlords was discussing it on BBC radio today and eventually drew the inevitable question from the presenter: "What did health and safety have to say?"


His answer was enough to bring tears to the HSE's PR team's eyes:

"The health and safety in Sheffield couldn't have been more constructive and helpful in working with us to make this happen."

You'll never see that in the Daily Mail.

Louis

Health news from Brum

I'm at the Health and Wellbeing at Work conference and exhibition in Birmingham.

Yesterday I learned:

• The government's planned new electronic fitnote to replace the MED3 sicknote isn't likely to make its debut until next year. They've got the note pretty well finalised (it's been trialled in various forms for three years) but need to sort out the systems to make it available to GPs on screen - the NHS doesn't have the easiest relationship with IT historically. DWP's chief medical adviser Bill Gunnyeon says it will be heralded by a lot of publicity to let employers know how to interpret the advice it will carry on what sick employees can do at work.


• Sitting bolt upright in your chair with your chest thrust out (like a parade fround sergeant major) is almost as bad for you as slumping forward. This sort of "thoracic upright sitting" - more common among women than men apparently - puts strain on deep muscles that are only meant for load bearing.


• The vitamin Thiamine has been identified as a trigger of occupational asthma, when applied to breakfast cereals (literally applied, they spray it onto cereals to put back in a little of the nutritional value that is stripped out from the grain in the manufacturing process.

Louis

All quiet on the development front

I'm signed up to the government's health and safety news alerts for all the UK's regions. That means that I get a lot of variations on the same theme when the HSE launches anything across the country. At the moment they are just starting a new construction campaign, so i have had at least 15 emails over the weekend headed along the following lines:
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Cheshire?
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Hertfordshire?
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Staffordshire?

Given the state of the industry (from my office window I can see two major sites which have been cleared and then mothballed by Hammerson), I'm imagining a chorus of "No!" coming back from the shires.

Louis

“Air of the sinister”

As the debate goes on about the necessity for legally defined health and safety duties for directors, the Mirror newspaper, reporting on the inquest into the death of Mark Wright in an explosion at a Flintshire metal scrapyard in 2005, concluded last week that: “This tragedy again shows that legally binding health and safety duties should be imposed on company directors — so someone faces the music when rules are broken.”

Wright suffered 90% burns after he was told to put more than 3000 small air-freshener aerosols, containing 35 litres of highly combustible propellant, into a crusher at Deeside Metals in Saltney, Flintshire. The jury at the inquest into his death heard about a catalogue of failures leading up to the incident: Wright wasn’t properly trained, he had no protective clothing, the cans were not labelled as hazardous, risk assessments were ignored, the waste drums and sealed containers were accepted at the yard on the basis of unsubstantiated verbal assurances from the haulier, only superficial tests were carried out on the canisters to see what they contained.

The waste transfer note, signed by both the driver collecting the waste and the yard manager, didn’t mention the aerosols; Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg said there was an “air of the sinister” around this omission.

The jury returned a narrative verdict; a verdict of unlawful killing requires the jury to identify, beyond all reasonable doubt, an individual they hold responsible, and the decision must be unanimous.

According to the Mirror, the Crown Prosecution Service has indicated it cannot bring manslaughter charges because of conflicting evidence from the driver and company manager. But reaction to the case seems to provide anecdotal evidence of a the media’s — and public’s — desire to see named individuals, and not just corporate entities, held to account in cases of serious injuries or deaths at work.

As the Mirror puts it, “there are several people whose actions contributed to Mark's death that day — yet none is likely to pay for this tragedy.”

The public desire to “make someone pay” isn’t new, but high-profile cases such as these lend weight to calls for legal directors’ duties, especially since the Corporate Manslaughter Act fell far short of what many people wanted to see in terms of sanctions against individuals.

Jocelyn

Manslaughter knock-ons

I was at a British Safety Council conference on executive leadership in health and safety yesterday and in asession on the Corporate Manslaughter Act, barrister Oliver Campbell was considering the possible effects of the legislation.

One thing he suggested was that the possibility of high fines (and the guidance for judges on these has yet to be issued but in the last draft suggested a normal starting point of 5% of corporate turnover, which would mean tens of millions for larger corporations) will mean that the defendants are more likely to contest the charges than they have with health and safety cases previously.

Campbell argued this might mean that insurers, who have covered companies' expenses for legal action before may start to exclude thembecause the proceedings will be long and expensive.

We've focused before on the possible fines and got an early indication of how scary and disruptive the first investigations have been for the companies involved (beyond the trauma and disruption any faltality on site inevitably causes).

The insurance point is just another example of the Act's potential impact.

Louis

Early closing is safe closing

Here's one I took on Tuesday in Hastings town centre (which had had got off very lightly with only four inches of snow and was easily navigable).

Looks like another instance of the name of H&S being taken in vain, unless anyone can explain how customers' safety (let alone health) could be maintained by bank staff going home early.

"Unavoidable" is a nice touch.

Louis

More junk Mail

Following on from the previous entry, yesterday's Daily Mail front page was headlined FROZEN OUT BY 'ELF AND SAFETY

I'm not going to go into the few rights and many wrongs of their coverage of the schools closures, though there's some appropriate responses here.

I'm just going to use it as an excuse to give a plug to the Dailymail-o-matic random headline generator which is a boon to anyone who feels the need of more news on how everything is wrong than that paper can produce in a day.

A couple of clicks on the refresh button gave me:
ARE CHAVS MAKING BRITAIN'S SWANS OBESE?
WILL HEALTH & SAFETY TURN TAXPAYERS' MONEY GAY?
WILL FILTH ON TELEVISION GIVE YOUR HOUSE CANCER?

Louis

Balls to the conkers merchants

All credit to education secretary Ed Balls who was just on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme and said "The idea that schools are not opening [in the snowy weather] because of health and safety legislation is nonsense".

Louis

Grace abounding on a scissor lift

I went to see Grace Jones last night. Astonishing woman, astonishing performer and a long-term supporter of the powered access industry it seems. She started her set with Nightclubbing about six metres up on a scissor lift.

I couldn't get any decent pictures on my phone, but have found some from the Australian leg of the tour.

Louis



And to prove what I said about her being a long-term MEWP user, here's another one from almost 30 years ago.

Simplicity itself

Anyone in need of an antitdote to stories about the burden of complying with overly complicated health and safety laws may be interested in news of a garden centre in Lancashire prosecuted after an employee broke his ankle falling from the top of a skip.

The company was fined £8000 after it turned out that there was a door at the bottom of the skip allowing access at ground level. Nobody had told the worker concerned so he climbed a ladder on the side of the skip to fill it from the top, overbalanced and fell.

The “hierarchy of control for working at height” might not be very meaningful to someone who’s never come across the Work at Height Regs, but the idea of telling your staff there’s a door at ground level so they don’t need to use a ladder is a fairly simple one.

Jocelyn

I am consulted on the strategy

I spent this morning in one of the consultation events on the HSE's draft strategy. There were about 80 of us at 10 tables discussing the proposals and then feeding the results back to a plenary session chaired by HSE board member John Spanswick. Most people agreed with the strategy goals but then, as some pointed out, they are pretty unarguable (more worker consultation, more leadership, more competence, enforcement where appropriate), but until we know how the HSE plans to help achieve them (which will come in the delivery plans) it's difficult to know how to judge the strategy overall.

The most interesting feedback i thought came in the form of suggestions about who could help the HSE get the safety message across and cut accident and ill health rates. These ranged from GPs to FE colleges, to insurers (by giving premium discounts) and several groups suggested that bigger organisations could do more to influence their supply chains. This has been common in the environmental field for a long time but less so in health and safety.

There was also a feeling that the draft underplays preventing ill health a bit and that though it does mention the HSE's enforcement role it doesn't really say anything about the beneficial efect of inspection (probably because the pressure from other parts of govermnment is for light touch regulation and for the HSE to avoid visiting sites randomly).

Apart from that there seemed a genuine keenness to get more health and safety into the educational curriculum from infants to postgrad level.

It was an interesting morning and obviously only one of a clutch of similar events round the country. Nevertheless I'm glad the HSE is emphasising that people are welcome to send in written submissions to the consuiltation, as these sessions feel like a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, the traditional consultation route.

Louis

Louis

Health and Safety Offences Act: probably not a new era

The Act takes effect today, raising the level of potential fines in magistrates courts for offences under most health and safety regulations from £5000 to £20,000 and giving magistrates the option of imprisonment for some breaches, see here

IOSH have put out a press release describing it as a "momentous day" and there was even some coverage in the national news. I'd like to agree with IOSH but I'm more cautious.

We all want bigger penalties for employers who are negligent, but most lawyers we talked to when the Act was passed reckon it might have the opposite effect. Faced with a serious offence, most magistrates have till now passed it up to a higher court which could fine far higher than the £5000 ceiling they had to operate under for any charge other than one brought under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The higher courts often doled out penalties above the magistrates' new £20,000 limit. Which means if the magistrates feel their new powers mean they don't need to had as many cases over, the average fine could drop, even if they go for the maximum they are allowed.

We'll see.

Louis