It seems the UK is suffering alone in terms of negative public perception of health and safety , with leading practitioners from the US, Canada and Australia all saying it doesn’t attract the same vitriol in their countries.
Richard Pollock from the American Society of Safety Engineers, Andrew Cooper of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering, and the Safety Institute of Australia’s Sue Pilkington were all fairly sanguine about the position of health and safety in their countries.
Said Richard Pollock: “Negative views of health and safety are generally a result of mis-information and spin, but we don’t let this bother us. At the ASSE, we are trying to get deeper into business networks, so that health and safety is understood as an asset and not a liability.”
Sue Pilkington described the attitude to health and safety in Australia as “enlightened”. She continued: “Good health and safety management is seen as a distinct advantage and part of doing business in Australia.
Andrew Cooper emphasised that the job for the health and safety profession is “to make sure people have the facts and can therefore make informed decisions”.
Sue Pilkington suggested that one way to change societal attitudes is to “really make clear what goes on in workplaces – how many are killed and maimed every day, and what that costs to GDP”.
Asked from the floor what significant occurrences in their countries have impacted perceptions of health and safety the most, Rick Pollock said big incidents in which several lives were lost have really struck a chord with the public.
He said: “These incidents increase awareness of the importance of good health and safety, and make businesses realise that implementing a sustainable agenda also includes focusing on people, and ensuring that the board is taking note.”
Andrew Cooper agreed that the headline incidents do focus minds, and gave the example of a mining disaster in Nova Scotia in the 1990s, which ultimately led to a change in the law to make companies more accountable for workplace incidents.
In Australia, it has been a more evolutionary process, according to Sue Pilkington, who said “a high level of engagement between employers, employees and the regulator – the tri-partite approach – has really worked”.
In response to delegate who wanted to know where the speakers stood on the issue of total safety versus reasonably practicable Richard Pollock laid down the bottom line thus: “A worker fatality or injury is completely unacceptable, so whether your goal is zero or something else doesn’t really matter, as long as we bring everyone home safe at the end of the day.”
Sue Pilkington agreed, saying: “Zero is aspirational and fine for the bigger players but others might see it as unattainable, and therefore not motivational.”
The discussion ended with a call by the Australian representative for more practitioners to move ‘down under’ as “we don’t have enough practitioners to fill the roles!” She singled out mining and resources as a particular sector in need, while Rick Pollock cited oil and gas, food and construction as growth areas for health and safety job opportunities in the US. Andrew Cooper also offered oil and gas, as well as heavy construction, as the main areas of need in Canada.
Below is a video from the panel discussion.
Simple reason: Through 30 yrs good practice the UK has one of the lowest fatility and injury rates at work in the world. A research study in April 2012 (on the ‘overseas only’ BBC Future website) showed that the risk of death (defined as a micromort = one in a million chance of suden death) in the UK was 10 Micromorts, much lower than the USA (28) 17 in France, 19 in Germany, 26 in Spain, 35 in Poland. Result: in the UK people do not see H&S as needed unlike elsewhere, hence its a joke target.
H&S in the UK often alienates the public because overzealous control measures are often enforced in low risk environments which are grossly disproportionate to the risk. Whereas the countries listed within the article are dominated by high risk industries such as mining, oil & gas and heavy construction. The consequence of getting it wrong in these industries often equates to multiple fatalities, therefore the public recognise that robust H&S within high risk industries is a valued necessity.