The new register for safety and health consultants is now live but practitioners remain sceptical about whether it will have any impact on the “climate of fear” and risk-averse behaviour lambasted by Lord Young.
The HSE announced the official launch of OSHCR – the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register – today (31 January), meaning members of the participating professional bodies who meet the eligibility criteria can now sign up. The application fee is £60 but those who apply before 30 April 2011 will receive a discount of £30. The fee is payable annually on renewal of registration.
Registration is voluntary and is open to individuals who provide commercial advice on general health and safety management issues, and who have achieved chartered status of either IOSH, the CIEH or REHIS; fellow status of the IIRSM with degree-level qualifications; or member or fellow status of the BOHS or the IEHF.
In addition, applicants will be asked to declare that they will demonstrate continuing professional development (CPD), have professional indemnity insurance, and provide sensible and proportionate advice.
It is on that last point that much of the profession’s exasperation hinges, with experienced practitioners arguing that often, it is not the advice they give that is the problem but how it is acted on by the duty-holder.
Writing in the February issue of SHP, John Lacey and Bob Arnold, of the IOSH Construction Group, point out that “there are two sides to the management of health and safety: experts who advise, and line managers who act as executives within their organisation and who are responsible for interpreting the advice in the interests of their employees and others affected by their undertaking”. It is unfair, they say, to always paint health and safety advisors as “the fun police” when it is not they who dictate company policy.
Consequently, they argue, “simply setting up a register and designating everybody on it as ‘qualified’ because they meet agreed criteria is not going to be enough on its own”.
Practitioner Ray Rapp agreed, saying: “The OSHCR will serve little purpose for the regulation of our industry. Most consultants are experienced and well qualified in their own particular field, and provide good advice. The issues of poor advice, risk averseness and ‘conkers bonkers’ have been promulgated by institutions using health and safety as an excuse not to bother with managing public events.”
IOSH’s policy and technical director, Richard Jones, conceded that “clearly, OSHCR cannot guarantee that all the advice given by consultants on the register will be proportionate, but any blatant transgressions of this can be regulated via the professional bodies”.
Opinion is also divided on whether or not the register will make any practical difference, given that the eligibility criteria are based on the already rigorous standards required by the participating institutions for chartered or fellow status.
IOSH believes the big difference is the fact that the register is government-recognised. Although the Institution has run its own consultants’ register for some years (which offers the same searchability and guarantee of members’ experience and qualifications as the new scheme) OSHCR is the first register to which the HSE and local-authority inspectors will be able to refer businesses.
Added Richard Jones: “The register represents all the stakeholder groups in the OSHCR consortium, so it has to be broader than IOSH chartered membership. It is intended that, over time, this will become the ‘norm’ for those using health and safety consultants, and will mean that those currently offering these services without qualifications or experience will either have to work to meet the criteria, or won’t be engaged. It should also help raise public awareness about the need for competence in this crucial area.”
The HSE says it is currently reviewing its guidance to identify OSHCR as “one option” for employers to access health and safety advice. It also emphasises that although businesses can be confident that members of the register belong to a professional body and have had their experience and qualifications assessed, “it remains the responsibility of the duty-holder to ensure both the suitability of the consultant they select and that they obtain competent advice”.
Consequently, small-business owners are underwhelmed by the scheme. A spokesperson for the Forum of Private Business told SHP: “It is another well-meaning initiative that is a typical case of the Government taking something that can be a problem and coming up with a solution that just replicates what exists already.
“Without the guarantee of the expertise of those on the register it’s not really much use. It’s good that the Government is trying to help but, at the end of the day, small-business owners can only rely on themselves in many cases, and this is an example of that.”
The register will be available to the public to search “as soon as the database is populated” and can be found at www.oshcr.org
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The consultants’ register is a joke. Most of the lunatic decisions that have been so rightly lambasted by the press are due to decisions made by so called “safety officers” in central or local government, police forces and other national agencies who (a) are not consultants but employees, (b)until now, have not had to consider reality – they simply add additional costs to the tax or rate bills and (c) were given the tools to do so through the lunacy of the HSC during its latter years.
Nicks last paragraph sums it up brilliantly – once again the governments answer, add another bit of bureaucracy into the mix – there is no substitute for experience and there never will be – add to that professional qualifications and what further do you need.
It all comes down to interpretation no matter what advice you give on any subject it all depends on how that advice is actioned by the recipients – the old adage comes to mind ‘you can take an horse to water but you cannot make it drink’.
Whilst we all strive for the construction industry to be rid of bad practice @ free of incompetent H & S Advisors, there is still a need for a sliding scale for this register and for it not to be eliteist in any way shape or form!!
CMIOSH’s have achieved this level most of the time through hard work & would almost certainly not be seen inspecting building sites??
For the industry to move forward we need to collectively address the above forthe benefit of Advisors & SME’s.
Mark Light TechIOSH
Mr Griffiths, I am one of those “so called “safety officers” in central or local government” and i find your remark offensive. I have considered reality, during my 7 years in local government and my 7 years of H&S work in the British Army…believe me, working in Afghanistan is about as real as you can get! As most H&S professionals know, it is not generally the H&S Advisor who makes these “lunatic decisions”, but the company itself as they are so afraid of being sued!
“IOSH believes the big difference is the fact that the register is government-recognised”.
Does this mean that the government does not recognise IOSH and the other institutes for safety health & risk management?
If my qualifications, professional accreditation and 15 years as a safety professional do not speak for themselves then registering in another register (and paying for the privilege) will not make me any more competent; government recognised or not.
Here we go again, why is it we remain so blinkered after all these years?
There are none so blind as those who don’t want to see!
Those that make the laws and other decisions are “amateurs” with no health and safety PRACTICAL experience of their own
Also, most of the ridiculous stories have arisen as a result of a young person who has just become qualified but who has not yet set foot in the real world of work over-reacting.
There is NO ALTERNATIVE TO LONG EXPERIENCE AT THE COAL FACE
What right does IOSH have to hi-jack OSHCR? By its own admission, its only a member’s organisation, and although it would like to think it does, it does not represent the SHE sector as a whole; so why clone the IOSH membership list? As a contributor to this blog has already pointed out, OSHCR looks like an upmarket CSCS scheme. Lord Young’s appointment is another example of an executive with no SHE knowledge trying to manage the people who have; which is the root to the whole issue.
Unfortunately the fire risk assessment profession is heading down the same path as H and S. Given an opportunity to make a real difference and marginalise the cowboys, they have opted to go with the existing state of play; a mix of accredited certification and none accredited registration. The net result is no standardisation of competence assessment and no easily signposted National Register for the end user to access. Simplify, Standardise and Signpost is the way to make a real difference.
I agree with the post that considers that this ignores real life, (H&S Conultants are normally in possession of qualifications AND experience). To expect a thrown together piece of government jargon to be any use is to believe that government can improve matters just by adding another level of bureaucracy.
It seems just a tarted up version of a CSCS card.
If this is all government can come up with, H&S has been failed again!!