OSHCR – Register of interest

Two years ago this month, one of the key recommendations to come out of the Young review was implemented in the form of the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants’ Register. Speaking to some of the managing bodies, as well as consultants themselves, SHP investigates how it’s doing in its aim to get rid of red tape and rogue advisors.

One of the worst things you can admit to in health and safety is taking a tick-box approach to complying with your responsibilities in this area. Great scorn has always been poured on the likes of “foot-thick” safety management plans, which may document all the risks and set out in great detail what needs to be done but are then left gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, with no attention being paid to the actions outlined therein.

Likewise, initiatives that are launched on the back of negative statistics, revelatory research, or the whiff of votes in the Westminster air and which burn brightly in the initial blaze of publicity but then fade into the background as soon as everyone is sure that “things have been seen to be done”.

This is an accusation that has been levelled by many in the profession at one of the key recommendations in Lord Young’s ‘Common sense, common safety’ review – the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants’ Register, or OSHCR, as it has since become known (www.oshcr.org).

The Tory peer was tasked in 2010 by the then-fledgling Coalition Government with uncovering the “unnecessary health and safety bureaucracy draining creativity and innovation from UK businesses” and coming up with proposals for getting rid of it. Among his 36 recommendations was the establishment of an accredited register for health and safety consultants, which, he said, would professionalise the provision of health and safety advice and thus solve the problem of ‘rogue’ advisors dispensing over-the-top, unnecessary and incorrect information.

So, two years on from its launch in January 2011, is it a case of “. . .and the OSHCR goes to. . .” for best performance in health and safety, or OSHCR the grouch, living in a trash can in a neighbourhood of muppets?

Points of view

Well, the answer to that depends on who you speak to – the managers of the register, or its members. Broadly speaking (specific responses are outlined overleaf), the former think it’s working really well, is attracting loads of members, and is having a genuinely positive effect. The latter. . .don’t.

Indeed, SHP was prompted to do this two-year anniversary piece by a number of less-than-enthusiastic threads on the IOSH discussion forums. Naturally, such platforms do tend to attract more people with an axe to grind than a bouquet to deliver but even so, it really was difficult to find contributors that had anything positive to say about a scheme that is supposed to be helping them win business and improve their reputation.

So, we decided to take the main criticisms being raised by scheme members (actual and potential) and put them to some of the organisations involved in the scheme’s development and management.

The OSHCR is an independent limited company with its own board, on which, in addition to the HSE and HSENI, 11 organisations have a seat: British Safety Industry Federation, British Safety Council, NEBOSH, RoSPA, International Institute of Risk and Safety Management, Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, British Psychological Society, Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, British Occupational Hygiene Society, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, and IOSH.

The latter seven organisations are ‘approving bodies’, i.e their members who meet their own eligibility criteria to become chartered members, or fellows, can apply to join OSHCR. In all, SHP spoke to five board-member organisations – IOSH, CIEH, RoSPA, the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and the British Occupational Hygiene Society – as well as three OSHCR members and three eligible (via their professional bodies) but non-members.

To try to get the client perspective we contacted the Federation of Small Businesses, having already established that there is no mention of the scheme on its website, even in its section dedicated to health and safety. We asked if the Federation and its members are aware of OSHCR (is it, for example, ever mentioned to callers to the FSB health and safety advice line, or in the Good Small Business Guide?) and how does the FSB advise its members on finding competent advice on and services in health and safety?

Unfortunately, the Federation came back to say it was unable to comment because “this is something we haven’t done very much work on, I’m afraid”!! (Exclamation marks, SHP’s own.)

We also put our questions to the HSE and, although it was very helpful in providing answers, it asked us to make it very clear that it does not manage the register – that is the job of the board-member organisations – and that the answers it supplied are from the OSHCR board, and not the HSE.

The regulator’s chief executive, Geoffrey Podger, is the current chair of the board, and  the HSE also provides board secretary support and a small staff resource to manage the administration of the register as an interim measure, while it is becoming established.

The same questions were put to five member organisations of the board of OSHCR and this is how they answered:

How is the register being promoted to potential clients (as opposed to potential members)? What are you doing specifically?
 

IOSH: Our role is to promote the register to our members so it can be populated with good consultants.

CIEH: Those of our members who work in the field of consultancy have already been notified of CIEH involvement in OSHCR and many have joined. The CIEH has links to OSHCR on our website and have publicised it through our own publications. The emphasis in the first year was getting the register up and running, and that has been successful. We continue to promote the scheme.

RoSPA: In general, we are supportive of OSHCR, although we feel that the project might have got off to a better start if there had been some good evidence-gathering on the state of the consultancy market and current practice to bottom out the concerns about inappropriate consultancy that were raised in Lord Young’s review.
That said, the aim of helping employers to secure the right advice and services to help them manage health and safety issues is a good one. We need to publicise the register more widely, including to intermediaries and non-H&S business advisors, particularly.

BOHS: OSHCR/HSE have/continue to promote the register to businesses using a range of channels.

IEHF: We are conscious that we could promote the register more on our website. But we are currently trialling our new site and the information about the register hasn’t transferred over yet. We encourage our members to be on the register and will continue to do so.

What is your view on making usage of the register compulsory for firms seeking H&S advice?

IOSH: At present, the register is not regulated. We think that would be too big a task. If only those consultants on the register were available, there are small companies who would not be able to afford health and safety advice. But this doesn’t stop these smaller firms from getting perfectly good advice from trained health and safety staff internally, who may not be as highly qualified but know their businesses well. We think possibly a register of people who would do annual audits on health and safety would be one way of ensuring that companies are fulfilling their health and safety responsibilities.

CIEH: Currently, there is no government appetite for compulsion in this area. Undoubtedly, if it were made compulsory then we would see a significant increase in applications. We are not in favour of making it compulsory at the time being.

RoSPA: The project needs to be seen as part of a wider project to create a ‘Big Society’ solution to our national workplace H&S needs, mobilising all the sources of advice and expertise there are out there in diverse organisations around the country (safety groups, consultants, clients, insurers, professional bodies, unions, etc) to help raise awareness and get safe systems of work in place.

BOHS: We feel that the register does not need to be made compulsory at this stage in order to achieve its aims.

One of the main reasons for setting up the register was “to clamp down on rogue consultants” – what evidence is there that it is meeting this aim?

IOSH: We don’t believe it has clamped down on rogue consultants. They have not joined the register because they are not qualified to do so, yet they are still operating as H&S advisors, often at a more competitive rate than those more qualified and on the register.

CIEH: It will inevitably take time for those on the register to gain the benefit of being within an approved registration scheme. This is why further promotion and marketing of the scheme is taking place. OSHCR is a quality-assurance scheme that covers its registrants.

BOHS: The register aims to help businesses in need of extra health and safety support to find local consultants with relevant industry and topic expertise. Before consultants can join the register they must prove they can meet strict eligibility criteria. In addition, a complaints procedure is currently being worked up, so that anyone who employs a consultant through the register but is dissatisfied with the service they receive has a formal route by which they can raise their concerns.

Another aim was “to ensure that businesses have access to competent and ethical advice” – how is it ensured that those on the register are, in fact, competent and ethical (as opposed to merely qualified/ticking particular qualification criteria)?

IOSH: We ensure that everybody who is an IOSH member has their CPD up to date, and this is checked on renewal of their membership.

CIEH: Those on the register are subject to the professional and ethical standards relevant to the professional body they belong to. The CIEH, like others, does take that responsibility very seriously, as we know our members on the register do. We will not hesitate to investigate anyone of our members against whom a complaint has been made.

RoSPA: At present, all the signs are that employers are procuring consultancy advice through personal recommendation. And most consultants are self-employed and do not have large client lists. OSCHR is there to help employers adopt a more systematic approach to procurement of services in this area. It is still early days.

BOHS: We are confident that the entry criteria (qualifications and CPD) ensure that the professional occupational hygienists on the register are competent and practise ethically. We would, however, like to see a ‘tightening up’ of the standards-based approach to ensure that all consultants claiming to provide ‘occupational hygiene services’ can prove/demonstrate a level of competency in this area.

IEHF: We are confident that all our members on the register are competent and ethical. It has been raised that when people sign up to the register they can tick various capabilities/skill sets, one of which is ergonomics. However, if they are not an IEHF-registered member, then there could be some doubt about this competency and that is something of concern to us.

Many of the concerns that register members (potential and actual) had when the register was being discussed and then set up, two years ago, haven’t been addressed – i.e the situation is the same as it was then/the fears were borne out. What progress/changes have been made since January 2011?

CIEH: The OSCHR board has an active work programme to constantly review the scheme and address any shortfalls, perceived or real.

RoSPA: We know some are critical of the register but I do hope a minority of negative voices is not allowed to become a tail that wags an otherwise potentially positive dog. It is very important that the OSHCR project is seen in this much wider context and also that we accept that we are all on a journey in this respect. There is still much to be done, and RoSPA will see what more we can do to raise awareness of OSHCR and the need to help SMEs with the practical challenges of accessing the right kind of professional advice.

BOHS: Changes we are aware of are the setting up of a complaints procedure, and the changing of the search function in order to randomise the listing (as opposed to them being alphabetical).

Overall, what are the criteria for success against which the scheme is being measured, and which, if any of these have been achieved?

IOSH: From the perspective of those who are on the register, it’s the number of potential clients they pick up. But it still seems to be a relatively small number because the register could do with more promotion.

CIEH: The scheme has been set up and 80 per cent of those initially on the register have renewed. We are now embarking on a renewed marketing campaign to raise awareness, we have supported a number of promotional events over the past year and awareness is slowly building, so a good start to a long journey ahead.

BOHS: Initial targets were set for the number of eligible consultants listed on the register, and these were exceeded. In terms of enquiries received through the register for occupational hygiene services, feedback from BOHS members suggests more enquiries are received through the BOHS consultants’ directory than through OSHCR.

The following health and safety professionals – some of them members of the register, some of them not – had this to say:

Nigel Bryson OBE BSc CFIOSH and current member of OSHCR

Ah, OSHCR – the solution in search of a problem! It was born on the back of the Policy Exchange report that produced no evidence as to the scale of problem to be addressed. It was then picked up by Lord Young but, again, no evidence was provided about the scale of consultant failure.

The DWP says the register will “clamp down on rogue health and safety consultants” and “ensure that businesses have access to competent and ethical advice” but, as the Government has no idea how many ‘rogue’ consultants exist, it is impossible to figure out how OSHCR will ‘clamp down’ on them. As a result, there is no benchmark against which to measure the register’s success or failure.

In any case, OSHCR does not ‘ensure’ that businesses get ‘competent and ethical advice’, in the same way the HSWA 1974 does not ‘ensure’ the health, safety and welfare of those at work. OSHCR provides a way to identify consultants who may be able to provide the service a client is looking for. However, there are plenty of other ways of finding consultants.

The irony of OSHCR is that in most of the hyped-up media stories, outside consultants have not featured; more often than not it is internal advice, or insurance company requirements. The myths now being ‘busted’ by the HSE do not reveal a great mass of incompetent external consultants.

I have received no enquiries or work from OSHCR – I use it as a marketing tool only. Overall, it serves a very limited function. It is voluntary, so there is no great onus on prospective clients to use it. I have seen no evidence that it has had any significant impact. It has been poorly publicised and, outside of the likes of SHP and the odd health and safety conference, I have seen no promotional materials.
 
Chris Packham FRSPH FIIRSM FInstSMM RSP MCMI MBICSc – not a member of OSHCR

The register is open to those who have obtained certain qualifications in general health and safety. It confuses ‘qualification’ with ‘competency’. I believe that those who created the register did not have sufficient understanding of the breadth and complexity of the health and safety field. No general health and safety consultant can possibly have an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of this field. Being on the register does not confirm that the person has the necessary expertise to provide the support that a particular client requires.

And, as I understand the system, it is still incumbent on the user to ensure that the consultant they have selected has the relevant expertise to deal with their particular situation. So what benefit to the client is the fact that the consultant is on the register?

Nor do I believe it will exclude the so-called ‘rogue consultant’. You can have someone with a high-level qualification, such as the NEBOSH diploma, who has little or no knowledge of specialist fields and does not appreciate the need for such expertise. Having been selected from the register they could well provide the client with incorrect, or unsuitable advice.

And incompetent advice can come not only from consultants but also from in-house advisors. The register does nothing to improve this situation. Indeed, it may even make it worse, as there could still be incompetent people who have qualified to be on the register.

Steve Granger CFIOSH and current member of OSHCR

Many of the negative views of the register are, I feel, missing the point of it and focusing on the ‘competent practitioner’ debate. The register was designed by people who understand the competency framework – to say it wasn’t isn’t true. It is not a ‘perfect solution’ but then, nothing would be. It is an attempt to provide SMEs with relatively useful information rather than simply using Yellow Pages. It does not excuse, nor has it ever excused, the SME from running their own competency checks. It also assists SMEs by referring to the professional bodies’ codes of conduct – something they would be very unlikely to know about otherwise.

Arguments about specialisms are irrelevant – the register aims to assist businesses to find advice on general health and safety management. We operate in a diverse industry; coupled with personal responsibility within MHSWR 1999 and the IOSH code of conduct, anyone on the register going outside their own competence risks being struck off the IOSH membership.

Clearly, when the profession itself does not seem to know anything about its self-governance, or its intentions to provide a service, then something has gone wrong. To me, this is the publicity side of the equation. Ultimately, the real measure will come from shoppers of the system – not those stacked on the supermarket shelf who are waiting for work from it, or those who choose not to participate.

Ray Rapp BSc BA CMIOSH – not a member of OSHCR

Like it or not, there is a great deal of angst regarding the OSHCR, inside and outside the ropes. I never signed up to the register – even at the knockdown price of £30 for the first year – on principle, because I did not believe there was a need for it.

I agree that there has probably been some misunderstanding about the purpose and benefits of the OSHCR – whether that is because it has been mis-sold is a matter of conjecture. Clearly, some of those on the register believe that paying out £60 per annum should bring some rewards in terms of consultancy opportunities, and this has been problematical.

What really annoys me and, I suspect, many other colleagues, is that there was no evidence of over-zealous or inappropriate advice from practitioners (save for the odd exception) and yet we are now expected to join a register that does nothing in reality to prevent unqualified consultants from providing advice, or over-zealous consultants from practising.

We all know that many consultants provide excessive documentation and sometimes advice – in truth, many clients expect this because they want a big bang for their bucks. It is no different in many other industries either, where consultants charge for their time and supporting documents.

Ian Harper Dip2.OSH CFIOSH – former member of OSHCR

I don’t think OSHCR works but, that being said, I’m concerned that many of its detractors are not seeing the bigger picture. They are taking a short-termist view – “I’m not renewing because I got no business from it”. Setting it up is a step on the right road and it is important, but people are disenchanted with it – they want to know what they are getting for the £60.

I don’t think it is promoted nearly enough. The number-one source of information on health and safety is the HSE website but even on here it is not obvious enough. They just had the logo on the homepage but even that’s gone now. The HSE and government don’t worry about whether it works or not – it’s just ticking a box.

I suggest a cheap and easy way for the HSE to communicate it to people is via enforcement notices. That’s the one time when people will want to find a competent consultant!

Another strong driver is the insurance companies. I have lots of insurance clients and I always ask how they find health and safety advice, and not one has ever said OSHCR. We need the Association of British Insurers on board, not just the safety organisations.

There is also the danger that someone else will come up with a better version. There are similar commercial databases out there for competent people, such as RatedPeople.com, which have categories for safety managers. One will eventually come along to provide a viable, commercially-driven alternative to OSHCR.

Ed Blanchard – current member of OSHCR

When it was set up I applied straight away and had great expectations but, frankly, I’ve been very disappointed. I have had no business generated by it.

Cutbacks in health and safety are cited as an excuse for not promoting it more but OSHCR came in after the cuts were announced, so that argument doesn’t really stand up. And they are getting £60 from 2000+ members – what is being done with this money?

I have no qualms with making it compulsory and I also don’t see why the HSE can’t enforce it. Look at the GasSafe Register – if you want to work with gas you have to be on that register, and the HSE enforces that, so why can’t it do the same with OSHCR?

The DWP was equally keen to emphasise its ‘hands-off’ role, simply sending back an exact copy of the HSE’s already submitted answers when SHP asked for Employment minister Mark Hoban’s opinion on this pet project of his predecessor in the role, Chris Grayling MP.

We duly expressed our disappointment at the lack of insight from the Government that commissioned the report that led to the establishment of the register in the first place. We highlighted the apparent negativity towards it within the profession, suggesting that this should be a concern – in that, in all likelihood, it could lead to the failure of the scheme altogether.

To which we received the following response: “The minister has seen and endorsed the responses that the Board [via the HSE] provided and is supportive of the initiative. It is disappointing to hear that some professionals are not equally supportive of OSHCR – the positive backing of its members is integral to a scheme of this sort and, as far as we are aware, most members remain committed to making OSHCR a success.”

If success is measured just on membership uptake and the fact that the register actually exists – which would seem to be the case, based on the answers provided by the organisations we questioned – then OSHCR is thriving. With a launch target of 500 members, the register quickly grew to more than 2800 by March 2012, with a renewal rate from year one to year two of 80 per cent. As of December 2012, membership stood at 2240.

At £60 to register, that equates to some £134,000 a year in revenue, so what is being done with all that (increasingly hard to come by, in health and safety circles) resource? One of the biggest complaints among members of OSHCR is that little, or nothing seems to have been done to promote the existence of the register – particularly to clients, such as small businesses.

As an overview of the promotional activities undertaken, the board provided the following list:

• Promotional postcards – more than 8000 were distributed in the first 12 months at a variety of events, including professional bodies’ conferences, health and safety events, Safety and Health Advice Days, and HMRC Business Advice Open Days;
• Trade-press marketing campaign – a three-month trade-media campaign ran from January to March 2012, involving adverts placed in a works management and a facilities magazine, as a result of which visits to the website more than doubled over that period. These same titles will be targeted again in the first quarter of 2013, as will four other B2B publications (including SHP – which ran its first half-page ad in last month’s issue, with the second on p29 of this issue);
• Professional bodies – the individual organisations managing the register are raising the profile of OSHCR through website news articles, e-mail notifications and telephone conversations with members. They have also distributed OSHCR promotional postcards at conferences and health and safety awareness events;
• Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Business Advice Open Days (BAOD) – HSE attended a number of these events as a partner organisation with other government departments. The events specifically target new or start-up small to medium-sized businesses. In all, 22 events were attended over a six-month period in 2011-12;
• HSE website – since its launch, OSHCR has received significant publicity on HSE’s website via press releases, news articles, e-bulletins and regular promotion on the homepage.

We went back to query that last point, as, from SHP’s perspective – and that of the other health and safety magazines (among some of whom we did a quick telephone poll) – although there was plenty of publicity and information around the launch of the register in January 2011 there hasn’t been a great deal since.

The board replied: “The HSE has regularly run news items promoting OSHCR, individual consultants have written articles for various magazines, and the HSE has also included OSHCR on its e-bulletins, which have more than 180,000 subscribers.”

As for the board organisations, their end-of-year-two report cards all say ‘could do better’ in respect of promotion of the register. None of the five we spoke to for this article features, or mentions it on the homepage of their websites. IOSH does have a full explanatory page on the scheme in its ‘Books and resources’ section, and the OSHCR logo appears on a rotating basis on various other pages throughout the site.

Searching for information on the sites using what we consider to be a typical term that the likes of small businesses might use – ‘competent advice’ – the HSE and IOSH sites produce the best results, with the former pointing straight to its ‘get competent advice’ page and the latter offering a PDF of its ‘Client’s guide for using a consultant’ document.
In the case of the more specialist organisations BOHS and IEHF, they clearly promote their own registers more obviously than the OSHCR. The former describes its ‘Directory of occupational hygiene services 2012’ as the only UK directory of qualified occupational hygienists. Meanwhile, the IEHF, in its ‘Find an accredited consultancy’ section, only emphasises its own accreditation, with no reference to OSHCR.

This begs the question: is a general register really the best solution to the diversity of health and safety-related needs among the huge target audience of small and medium-sized businesses? Some of our member commentators certainly don’t think so, and the specialist organisations don’t seem to, either.

Nor, it appears, do many IOSH members. In the Institution’s Salary and Attitudes Survey 2012, the results of which were published in December, respondents were asked to consider whether it would be advantageous for specialist areas of practice to be recognised by IOSH via a series of registers, such as a ‘Construction Safety Practitioner Register’. Just over two thirds of respondents either strongly agreed, or agreed, with 20 per cent disagreeing.

So, what next for OSHCR? It has only been up and running for two years and, as noted by many of our commentators, there is a lot more to be done – mainly on the promotional side – before any real evaluation can be made.

It is a team effort, which both gives it strength – through combined working and commitment – and weakens it, because of the ‘too many cooks’ effect, but now that it is here, all stakeholders need to do what they can to ensure it works.

Yes, there is a lot of negativity towards it from the profession but, as another famous Oscar once said, “everything popular is wrong” so the management board should bear that in mind and simply get on with making it work – for everyone.

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