Health and Safety review

At long last someone has stepped up and tackled the minefield that is H&S legislation in this country .H&S legislation costs companies millions of pounds a year and much of it is needless and pointless ,it is often interpreted wrongly leading to excessive costs to a company

A subject that is constantly on my mind as i work in the construction industry ,an industry that is full of H&S conflicts and bordering on downright dangerous

Lord Young was asked to report to David Cameron back in june and this is his report
http://www.number10.gov.uk/wp-conten...nSense_acc.pdf

it covers everything from schools to local fetes ,office workers to builders
now lets hope the government act on it

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by martyh

At long last someone has stepped up and tackled the minefield that is H&S legislation in this country .H&S legislation costs companies millions of pounds a year and much of it is needless and pointless ,it is often interpreted wrongly leading to excessive costs to a company

A subject that is constantly on my mind as i work in the construction industry ,an industry that is full of H&S conflicts and bordering on downright dangerous

Lord Young was asked to report to David Cameron back in june and this is his report
http://www.number10.gov.uk/wp-conten...nSense_acc.pdf

it covers everything from schools to local fetes ,office workers to builders
now lets hope the government act on it

Martyh, it's probably a good idea to read these type of reports before citing them as some sort of placebo for what you think you want to hear.

By way of example I give you Lord Youngs comment contained in the Executive Summary, paragraph one thereof wherein he states thus:-

"In my review of the workings of this Act, none of my recommendations applies to hazardous occupations where the present system, although probably overly bureaucratic, is nevertheless effective in reducing accidents at work".

See what he did there? Yes, that's right, he just kept you in work replacing the windows and doors in thousands of council property dwellings for the forseeable future.

Are you in a rush to end up on the dole?

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Martyh, it's probably a good idea to read these type of reports before citing them as some sort of placebo for what you think you want to hear.

By way of example I give you Lord Youngs comment contained in the Executive Summary, paragraph one thereof wherein he states thus:-

"In my review of the workings of this Act, none of my recommendations applies to hazardous occupations where the present system, although probably overly bureaucratic, is nevertheless effective in reducing accidents at work".

See what he did there? Yes, that's right, he just kept you in work replacing the windows and doors in thousands of council property dwellings for the forseeable future.

Are you in a rush to end up on the dole?

I have nothing at all against H&S that is sensible and is in place for a genuine reason as it has without doubt saved thousands of lives .I do however strongly disagree with elements of the legislation that apply in the non-hazardous part of my job and there are plenty of them .It would be nice to have a simplified uniform implementation of H&S regulation across all industries not relying on different interpretations of the same rule at different locations .
A classic example ,(i believe i have used this before in a different thread) .On some sites we can use ladders as hanging out of windows to work on the outside is deemed dangerous (which in my opinion is correct)on other sites no ladders are permitted not even step ladders we are told during induction that we will have to hang out the window .This is the type of ludicrous conflict that i would like to see eliminated .
There are plenty of other cases that happen every day that i could quote ,but i do take your point that chiefly the revue is targeting the overzealous officials that block school trips,or force companies to have H&S officers doing costly risk assessments to move a filing cabinet

Marty

you may find these states from the HSE helpful -

Construction has the largest number of fatal injuries of the main industry groups. In 2008/09p there were 53 fatal injuries giving at rate of 2.5 per 100 000 workers. This is the third highest rate of fatal injuries, behind agriculture and extractive industries.

The rate of fatal injuries in construction over the past decade has shown a general downward trend, the rate for 2008/09p being less than half the rate in 2000/01 (2.5 compared to 5.9 per 100,000). The rate has decreased by 34% in the past 3 years.

Your complaint seems to be at over-zealous (or worried about workplace compensation claims) H&S Officers - that is up to companies, not the Government.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Marty

you may find these states from the HSE helpful -

Your complaint seems to be at over-zealous (or worried about workplace compensation claims) H&S Officers - that is up to companies, not the Government.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Marty

you may find these states from the HSE helpful -

Your complaint seems to be at over-zealous (or worried about workplace compensation claims) H&S Officers - that is up to companies, not the Government.

My complaint is that for years overzealous company H&S officers have been allowed to legislate at there pleasure causing conflicts and confusion which can be just as dangerous as having no H&S at all ,as in the example i gave above.On most sites i work on there is a mix of hazardous and non-hazardous work ,my own type of work is classed as both ,i have to follow about 10 different directives to remove a piece of glass from an old window ,but there are non to force the tennant to vacate the room while i am doing so or to remove children from the vicinity i.e stop them playing in the garden during the works ,i can ask them to vacate but they don't have to ,i can't plug a 18v battery charger into the mains of the house but i can plug a 110v transformer in ,on one site i had to buy a generator to charge my batteries(which shortens the life of the batteries) .These are sort of daft regulations i want sorting out .

New build sites are much better the regs are clear and make perfect sense hense the figures you quote

[Stuart]

Unfortunately, while (as a course I was on recently pointed out), the Health and Safety act has not actually changed since 1974, ambulance chasing (sorry, should have said "no win no fee") lawyers have forced companies and other authorities to introduce pointless rules to protect their own backs.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Unfortunately, while (as a course I was on recently pointed out), the Health and Safety act has not actually changed since 1974, ambulance chasing (sorry, should have said "no win no fee") lawyers have forced companies and other authorities to introduce pointless rules to protect their own backs.

The '74 Act has changed many hundreds of times (most recently this year where 37 changes are pending) as it is the primary legislation which allows for subsidiary legislation and policy to be created.

Those subsidiary legislations are among the most fluid and adaptive on the statute books, they are pretty much constantly changing and adapting.

I take your point about the ambulance chasers though.