It seems the media has not yet tired of taking pot-shots at health and
safety, with another half-hour of prime-time television devoted to
emphasising the absurdity of the sector with only scant mention of its
importance.
The BBC’s Panorama programme ‘May contain nuts’, presented by
parliamentary sketch-writer and Mail on Sunday columnist Quentin Letts,
kicked off with the question: “It’s easy to make fun of health and
safety, but does that make it wrong?” With liberal use of words and
phrases like “laughing stock”, “obsessive”, and “zealots” the casual
viewer was left in no doubt that some areas of health and safety
deserve all they get.
Much was made of a local council’s decision to ‘topple-test’
gravestones and then shore up those deemed unstable with wooden shafts,
thus creating even more hazards, as Letts gleefully pointed out. While
some mention was made of the fact that deaths and injuries from
unstable gravestones have happened in the past, the costs incurred in
carrying out these tests and installing interim safety measures, and
the upset caused to the relatives of those interred in the cemetery,
were emphasised much more strongly.
The programme did attempt to explain why health and safety is not
always the enemy — discussing, for example, the provenance of the
Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 35 years ago, and pointing out that
much of today’s problems stem from the rise in insurance premiums and
the plethora of ambulance-chasing lawyers creating a compensation
culture — but this felt like a distraction to the main aim: taking the
mick out of health and safety.
Following a moving segment with the parents of 17-year-old Stephen Burke, who died in a fall from height five years ago,
the programme moved on to Letts’ attendance on a course to “learn how
to use a step-ladder”. Although he acknowledged that 12 people were
killed in ladder incidents last year, the gravity of this fact was lost
in his jocular chat with Belgian construction workers who poured scorn
on the UK’s adhesion to rules and procedures, and his sarcastic receipt
of his certificate for having passed the course.
The Ladder Association took a dim view of the programme (the course
featured was not one of theirs). Chairman Don Aers commented: “We all
think we can use one, but it is surprising the number of people who
have been using ladders, including the hardened 20-year user, who come
away from a Ladder Association training course having learned something
new. Knowledge or information that may prevent injury or worse in the
future. The message from the Association remains clear: if it’s right
to use a ladder, use the right ladder, and get trained to use it
safely.”
On the positive side, the programme did highlight some of the concerns
that practitioners and other stakeholders in the health and safety
sector have held for some time — namely, the lack of resources for the
HSE, ‘gold-plating’ of EU directives, and the growing reluctance of
individuals to take responsibility for their own health and safety.
General secretary of the UCATT union Alan Ritchie told Letts that
although construction is the UK’s most dangerous industry, it also has
the lowest number of safety committees and safety reps. Ritchie also
bemoaned the lack of HSE inspectors, to which the Executive’s chair,
Judith Hackitt, replied that “numbers are now up to where we want them
to be”. She avoided agreeing to Letts’ suggestion that enforcement
should be the HSE’s main weapon, insisting that it was one of many
tools at its disposal. Letts made the observation that many in the
sector have felt for some time that all this fretting about the lower
end of risk — the gravestones, the ladders, etc. — may mean that those
at the higher end go unnoticed.
IOSH agreed with Letts’ call for an end to risk-averse meddling where
it’s not needed and for us all to accept greater responsibility for our
own safety. However, it was also concerned that by highlighting
examples of over-zealous interpretation of health and safety
guidelines, the programme itself was guilty of being over-zealous.
Said president-elect, John Holden: “True, there have been examples of
local authorities diving in with both feet, using stakes and ropes and
daubing gravestones with bright paint, with little feeling for people’s
sensitivities. In my experience of working on this type of risk,
however, there’s generally a much more planned approach, taking time to
consult with relatives, communicate with councillors, talk to people
visiting graveyards and taking care in selecting which graves,
depending on their size, age and position, need to be highlighted with
discreet notices before being repaired, if they are unsafe.”
John concluded: “If the lasting effect of Panorama’s focus on health
and safety is to make a memorable contribution to introducing a more
common-sense approach to risk management, based on protecting against
real danger rather than wrapping people in cotton wool, then this has
to be a good thing.”
The Prospect union took a similar view, with HSE branch chair Neil
Hope-Collins congratulating the BBC for “highlighting the importance of
occupational health and safety regulation” but also expressing concern
that this message was undermined by “exaggeration and misinterpretation
of selected policies”, mirroring the very approach the programme
aspired to tackle. He added: “This masked the bigger picture: many
employees continue to be exposed to excessive risk at work.”
The union issued an invitation to Quentin Letts to meet its members in
the HSE “to discuss the valuable work they do and how they go about it”.
The programme concluded that while safety at work has a legitimate
role, there is a great deal more to be done. Taking the heat off the
health and safety professional (variously described in the programme as
“making money for nothing” and “bureaucrats”) the point was emphasised
that unless we all take responsibility for our own safety and start
using some common sense, “safety will continue to be a joke — a
dangerous joke”.
What did you think of the programme —
another nail in the coffin or a balanced and beneficial broadcast? Let
us know via our comment function below.
