The Wardman Wire

I have had a detailed response from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health to my article “Do Health and Safety Professionals Get too Much of a Kicking?” I reproduce it full here.

I am absorbing the large number of detailed comments made on the posting, and the discussion in the Public Forum on the IOSH website, and will post a considered response in a couple of days.

This response is from the IOSH Director of Communications Ruth Doyle (thanks, Ruth). I have included the IOSH contact information, as it is in the public domain - and I’d encourage anyone with questions specifically for the IOSH to get in touch directly. They (and the President has her own own blog) are especially after media coverage - which I think is a good thing.

I’ll be responding to the response with my other reflections next week.

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your interest in our campaign.

I’ve had a look at your blog piece filed yesterday - “Do Health and Safety Professionals get too much of a kicking”, and I think we agree on some very important points. I would also like to pick up on a couple of other points you made.

In Ray’s interview, he talked about the damage to the public’s understanding of health and safety as a serious issue (ie making sure people go home in one piece at the end of the working day), caused by “bonkers conkers” stories in the press. He made the point that often, these seemingly crazy decisions are not made by health and safety professionals, but by other managers within an organisation. The point was not that it’s a debate between Health and Safety Advisers and Health and Safety Managers, as you suggest - rather, it’s other managers, people who have no knowledge or training in health and safety, who are making a decision to stop or ban a seemingly harmless activity, and use “health and safety” as the reason, or excuse.

More often than not, this decision is made with no input from a health and safety professional at all, and the true reasoning behind it is about avoiding possible future compensation claims - a point that more and more media commentators are starting to reflect. On other occasions, the advice of the health and safety professional may be ignored because managers prefer to take ‘the easy way out’ and stop something, rather than taking the trouble to manage the risk in a sensible way.

You correctly identified that the answer to the problem is to stop people giving bad advice and educate others in recognising the limits of their competence. You cite the BMA as an example - unfortunately, unlike the medical, legal and many other vital professions, health and safety is not currently a regulated profession, with powers to stop malpractice.

As the law currently stands, anyone, with no qualifications or experience whatsoever, can call themselves a health and safety adviser, or make decisions in the name of health and safety. The law requires all organisations to make sure they get “competent” advice on the subject, but gives no specific guidelines on what ”competence” is or looks like. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as the enforcer, offers no clear guidance either.

That’s why our campaign, launched in May, focuses on the importance of professional advice - you might want to look at our Get the Best microsite and in particular, our campaign manifesto http://www.iosh.co.uk/files/getthebest/Getthebest.pdf

On this issue, we are calling for government and other stakeholders to:

1. Clearly define ‘competence’ in health and safety
2. Recognise and promote the specific national standards, linked to the right levels of health and safety qualification, experience and skill, for different sizes and types of business
3. Make providing health and safety advice a legally regulated profession
4. Turn directors’ health and safety responsibilities into explicit legal duties
5. Make public reporting on health and safety mandatory for medium and large organisations
6. Include health and safety in vocational, professional and business curricula

Looking at your piece yesterday, you may agree with some of these key points, and the arguments behind them.

Our campaign has 3 main strands:

1. Encouraging our members to aim to get the best for themselves and their employers - by committing to continuing professional development (now mandatory for most of our members), improving their own and others’ standards
2. Encouraging employers and others to demand the best health and safety professionals for the job
3. Encouraging the media to get the best health and safety comment for their stories

As an independent charity, our campaigning budgets are small (certainly compared to a government funded body), but our lobbying impact has been significant in previous campaigns. We have already started the ball rolling on this issue with MPs and Peers, and will continue to lobby hard throughout the next parliamentary session. Our campaign has already targetted HR professionals and employers and will continue through the Autumn, and our sponsorship of the World Conker Championship (announced by Ray yesterday) is an important part of getting the media to include the professional voice in this debate.

In September, we will publish the first of a series of academic research reports (funded by IOSH) that clearly demonstrate the value that competent advice adds to an organisation’s performance. There are many other elements to the campaign coming on line in the next month or so, so do stay in touch - our press office will now send you all relevant details as they emerge and can tell you more about the media element of the campaign.

One final point about our discussion forums - nearly half of our 30,000 members worldwide use these forums on a regular basis, to share ideas and trade hints, tips and opinion about health and safety issues. The Privy Council granted Chartered status for our most qualified and experienced members just two years ago - while it may seem inward-looking to debate the value of Technician vs Chartered membership, as a recent issue it’s one that, understandably, pops up from time to time. It would seem a little unreasonable to judge an important campaign by the professional body for health and safety on the basis of personal views expressed by individual members on a forum.

I hope you feel that our six-point Get the Best campaign manifesto is something you can support, and perhaps with your help, we can stop the “bonkers conkers” madness!

Yours sincerely,

Ruth

Ruth Doyle
Director of Communications

t +44 (0)116 257 3100
f +44 (0)116 257 3101
www.iosh.co.uk

Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
The Grange, Highfield Drive, Wigston, Leicestershire, LE18 1NN, UK.

Founded 1945, Incorporated by Royal Charter 2003, A registered charity