HEALTH & SAFETY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Let’s face it – health and safety isn’t anybody’s favourite subject, however, it exists because you and I want it to. Not because we are advocating a nanny state, a no responsibility, blame apportioning culture; but because if someone is doing a job, they have a right to expect an intrinsic level of safety inherent in what they are being asked to do. In the same way that you and I expect to be able to walk down a high street past a cooling tower that is not wafting out legionella scented water droplets, to catch a train that is going to get us from A to B ideally without crashing or derailing or to use a hairdryer in a hotel that is not going to give you a zap worthy of a posting on you tube, an employee has a right to expect that when asked to do a job, he or she will be told about any hazards inherent in that work task – as opposed to finding out the hard way that there’s asbestos in those floor tiles or that fire exit is locked off now because of a prior security incident.
Most of us are social beings and recognise that the rules we need to live and work by represent the framework for a civilised life. We also recognise that risks are essential if we are to perform to our fullest. Health and safety does not exist to ban people’s fun, but instead to ensure people get work done safely and healthily. How many times, though, does the media report a health and safety zealot over interpreting legislation in an attempt to reduce risk to zero, something the HSE clearly state is generally not possible? Vittaflor resents health and safety being used to excuse or justify unpopular decisions – banning conkers, school excursions, snow balls and ladders spring to mind – and disagree vehemently with the use of health and safety as a convenient explanation not to act. Rather, we make it our driving objective to come up with sensible approaches and sensible solutions in a cost effective manner; in short, adopting a common sense approach within the bounds of the legislation.
Our company imperative is that we must have a genuine enthusiasm for fire prevention and health and safety. When looking at what is required in a risk assessment, we also look at coming up with workable recommendations for any advice given. We do not quote legislation, regulations and ACOPs (Approved Codes of Practice) chapter and verse – conversely we have an inkling of what a pain in the backside health and safety can be and that to get it right it really does need flexibility and an understanding of the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter of the law.
Over application of health and safety featured in the April 2008 Work and Pensions Committee report in which Judith Hackitt, Chair of the HSE, agreed that there was “a good deal of evidence” that businesses, and some of the organisations which advise them, over-interpret legislation, which leads to the production of unrealistic risk assessments, not required under legislation. The report then draws connections between this over-complication and evidence provided by the Trades Union Congress, which highlighted that some employers, mainly SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), are not undertaking risk assessments.
For most, if not all businesses, the task of managing health, safety and fire risks is fundamental to their commercial success, perhaps even to their very survival. This is increasingly true in a world characterised by growing regulation, tougher enforcement and heavier penalties for infringements. Vittaflor’s mantra is to provide our clients with no nonsense, professional, user friendly advice on how to comply with all relevant health, safety and fire legislation thereby enabling clients to achieve and maintain best practice.
Recent introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 following many years of dallying between the House of Lords and the House of Commons sees companies, organisations and Government bodies now facing an unlimited fine, and possibly remedial and publicity orders, if they are found to have caused death due to their gross corporate health and safety failures. Liability for the new offence of corporate manslaughter depends on a finding of gross negligence in the way in which the activities of an organisation are run.
Labour are often being castigated in the press for the introduction of voluminous statutes and regulations since coming into power. But society isn’t as simple and as straightforward as it once was. We are clearly not able to rely upon companies and individuals to live and work by a moral code whereby employees or members of the public suffering some form of damage can expect to be compensated for any wrongs suffered through no fault of their own, eg. a train crash, a gas explosion, a canoeing accident on a school adventure trip. Not that this has ever been the case. Instead we require legislation to provide us with a framework or moral code and I know that most of us, when we think about it, gain reassurance from the notion that there are laws in place determining and protecting our rights and abilities to put wrongs right.
No, health and safety exists because you and I want it to. We demand it after tragedies and even vote governments in on the back of health and safety pledges in their election manifestos. We realise we need it when something has gone wrong and are thankful for it when we realise there is an avenue or legal recourse to seeking redress for damages, or getting a better chair in the office because your back is in agony after an hour in your present one. As standards of living have increased, as have life expectancy rates, so has our value on leisure time and our ability to spend it doing what we want to do; not suffering from the inhalation of coal dust, asbestos fibres or industrial deafness.
So why the diatribe? We really just wanted to illustrate that our company genuinely cares about people’s well being and health and safety in general. So much so, that we try and do something about it for a living. I don’t think you could call any of us at Vittaflor pen pushing anoraks, box ticking trainspotters or nosey parkers with an arcane obsession for getting people to do things the long, hard way. Rather, we recognise that a risk assessment is by far the most logical and itinerant means of determining what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace and after years of experience and thousands of the bloody things, we also think we’re pretty good at them.
