An employee has suffered lon g -term lung damages a result of exposure to hazardous substances at his place of work. As a result, the employee has, on medical advice, been moved to alternative work away from the substances concerned. Outlinethe types of cost to the employer which may arise from this situation. (12)
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Compensation costs Legal fees Medical/treatment costs Loss of production Lost time for medical assessment Overtime costs for cover; Costs for new worker; cost for employee moved to new job;
Investigation time; Clerical effort; fines/prosecution costs; Fee for intervention by enforcements; loss of expertise; loss of goodwill by customers/stakeholders; Reduced productivity by fellow workers; health screening by
Ill health caused or made worse by work is a greatercause of harm to workers than the more traditional safety-
related causes such as falls from height or machinery ac-cidents. Identify the national sources of data AND give examplesof conclusions that have been drawn from these sources,which support the statement above. (8)
Detailed statistics or data are not required in your answer .
An organisation is proposing to move from a healthand safety management system based on theHealth and Safety Executive's HSG65 model to onethat aligns itself with BS OHSAS 18001. Outline thepossible advantages AND disadvantages of such achange. (10)
May require additional paperwork and skillsfor chance
18001 may not be appropriate for Small toMedium businesses (“over the top”);
HSG65 is the “official” standard used bythe HSE so despite the change HSG65 willstill be the “reference point” for their inspec-tion / audit / investigation;
It can loose its identitiy and be audited bynon specialists
(a) Explain why organisations often identify thecosts of health and safety control measures muchmore easily than they identify the costs that canarise from poor health and safety standards. (6)
For example, H&S control measures are treated as an “overhead” and the amountspent is easily calculated.
Costs from poor health and safety however can take many years to show (Civil claims)
Some are indirect so not easily recognised—Reputation damage
Cost of recourses
Poor health and safety culture
Loss of experience
Lost orders/contarcts
eg the costs of resources expended during investigations, loss of skill / experience,damage to staff morale / H&S culture, reputational damage resulting in lost orders /contracts etc etc.
Hard to calculate the savings made from GOOD health and safety as this is usu-ally a negative—I.E ZERO accidents is hard to quantify
Outline, with examples, the meaning of the terms`insured' and 'uninsured' costs in connection with acci-dents and incidents at work and describe the relative sizeof these two costs in an organisation, as demonstrated byaccident costing studies. (4)
Insured costs are those costs / losses that are recoverable via an insur-ance scheme eg1. Employer’s liability (compensation / damages);2. Public liability,3. fire insurance
Uninsured costs are those that are not recoverable via
an insurance scheme eg 1. FINES imposed for breaches of the relevant statu-
tory provisions;2. Damage to corporate image / reputation;3. lost time; clean up costs
Uninsured costs may be between 8-36 times greater than insured costs(Reduce risks - cut costs. INDG 355 2002)
Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations1999 requires that employers appoint persons to assist them in complyingwith their legal health and safety obligations.
(a) Outline the main requirements of this regulation. (4)
(b) Outline the key areas of strategic involvement of the health and safetyprofessional with respect to developing and maintaining an employers'health and safety management system. (6)
The senior managers at your workplace participate in formal an-nual reviews of health and safety performance as part of thehealth and safety management system. Outline the types of in-formation that should form the inputs to this review process. (10)
As the Health and Safety Adviser to a large organisation, you have decidedto develop and introduce an in-house auditing programme to assess the ef-fectiveness of the organisation’s health and safety management arrange-ments. Describe the organisational and planning issues to be addressed inthe development of the audit programme. (20)You do not need to consider the specific factors to be audited.
Staffing/time/resources and whether additional resources are needed- time, money, ex-pertise.
consider whether internal / external auditors should be used to administer the process; if in-house consider training needs;
the need to consult with and obtain support from senior managers
nature of the audit procedure eg full audit - all H&S management issues across entireorganisation; horizontal audit - looking at a particular issue eg managing emergencies - across the whole organisation; vertical audit - focussing on H&S management issues in
a particular department / section etc;
consider the scale / scope of the audit - all issues covered or certain issues targeted - egpolicy documentation; frequency of auditing required (relative to levels of risk in the or-ganisation);
the standards against which the management arrangements would be audited - BSEN /Trade Association standardsthe need to identify the key elements of an audit process (such as planning, interviews,verification, feedback routes, etc); consider issues such as need for a system of scor-ing / rating performance - qualitative / semi-quantitative
A large public limited company has recently experienced a fire and explo-sion resulting in multiple fatalities and extensive environmental damage.(a) Outline a range of consequences that may affect the company as a re-sult of the incident. (5)
highlights compliance or non-compliance;1. Provides an opportunity to challenge unsafe actions2. Identifies patterns and trends and common organisational prob-
lems; 3. Raises awareness of Health & Safety issues;4. Checks effectiveness of actions put in place;5. Helps to prioritise actions and resource allocation
Safety tours can improve H&S culture by:
1. Demonstrating organisational / management commitment2. engaging staff ; 3. Giving Ownership of health and safety;4. raising awareness of H&S issues;5. improving perception / attitudes / motivation / behaviour; 6. providing opportunities for consultation / communication;
WHO: who is to be involved Composition & competence requirements of inspectionteam
WHAT: the scope of the inspection programme The range of activities / processes / to be cov-ered by the inspection; employees / contractors
WHEN: planned programme or random / unannnounced; The frequency and timing of the in-spection to cover shifts, “out-of -hours” maintenance activities / shutdown;more regular in safety-critical environments; previous data - accident / ill-healthrecords / trends
WHERE: the sites / locations to be inspected
HOW: the methods of recording data - checklists / observation / scoring / rating
The training needs of the inspection team; the equipment needs of the inspectionteam - PPE etc; the need for consultation and support / involvement of manage-ment / staff - team meetings / briefings / newsletters etc; applicable legal stand-ards (COSHH R 9 LEV); industry standards / requirements of insurers;
Strengths;1. measurable number with defined criteria, 2. easy to plot a trend, benchmark data may be available, represents cat-
egories of loss events which have actually happened, and which areundesirable.
Weaknesses:
1.
cannot predict future performance;2. It measures previous not current safety measures effectiveness3. accidents may not be reported4. absence of accidents does not necessarily indicate that procedures are safe; 5. does not reflect chronic health issues;6. different definitions of ‘accident’ / different treatment of part-time workers / contrac-
Your company employs 900 people at a warehousing and distri-bution site. Your site manager has asked for a set of summary in-formation to be provided each month for its executive meetings inorder to monitor the overall health and safety performance of thesite. Outline the possible contents of that set of information. (10)
The information set should contain both reactive and active(proactive) data:
Reactive:1. numbers of accidents / ill-health / sickness absence / absenteeism /2. staff turnover / near -misses / numbers of RIDDORs3. Number of enforcement actions taken;4. civil claims;5. amount of property damage;6. responses to staff surveys / questionnaires – levels of (dis)satisfaction.
Active:1. numbers and outcomes of workplace inspections;2. numbers of actions outstanding;3. health surveillance data / records;4. results of atmospheric / environmental monitoring; - air; noise etc;5. H&S training records6. tenders won where H&S standards / performance was a factor; l 7. level of maintenance carried out; 8. budget / resources allocated to Health and Safety;9. progress in meeting H&S targets; 10. levels of hazard reporting;11. extent of co-operation between staff & managers
An employer wishes to build a new gas compression installation to provideenergy for its manufacturing process. An explosion in the installation couldaffect the public and a nearby railway line. In view of this the employer hasbeen told that a qualitative risk assessment may not be adequate and thatsome aspects of the risk may require a quantitative risk assessment.
Witness interviews are an important part of the information-
gathering process of accident investigation. Describe therequirements of an interview process that would help toobtain the best quality of information from witnesses. (10)
Interview ASAP (but allow delay for injury / shock); Allow adequate time for interview; interview one witness at a time; allow witness to be accompanied
by a colleague / union rep etc; establish rapport; put interviewee at ease; explain purpose of inter-
explain need to record interview - evidential basis; open questions / allow interviewee time to answer; listen carefully to responses and respond appropriately;
step model:ancestry / social environment - fault of person - unsafe act / condition - accident - injury. Subsequent developments of Heinrich's model by Bird and Loftus: lack of management / organisational con-trol – basic causes (personal / job factors) - immediate causes (unsafe acts / conditions) - accident - loss. Bird and Loftus variant is an advance on Heinrich as it takes account of organisatiomal / management failures /underlying causation.
Uses: both theories provide a basis for structured accident investigations.Limitations: both models encourage simplistic, sequential / straight-chain thinking that imply the removal of asingle link can prevent accidents; as such tend to restrict the search for multiple accident causes; Heinrichmodel in particular encourages a focus on immediate causes (acts / conditions) rather than underlying causa-tion (faults in planning / design).
Multi-
causality theory: model developed by Prof James Reason-
based on recogni-tion of multiple underlying (organisational, cultural or managerial) failings that in-teract with each other and with local circumstances to produce accident events atunpredictable times and locations; each cause may have multiple causes of itsown; characterised by randomness and complexity; emphasises the need for in-
depth accident investigation; provides a basis for systematic accident analysistechniques such as fault tree analysis / event tree analysis; provides a link be-tween the number of underlying failings in an organisation and the probability ofaccidents occurring.Limitations: complex / conceptually difficult; requires greater resource - expertise /time money; diffficult to define boundaries of investigation.
A forklift truck is used to move loaded pallets in a large distributionwarehouse. On one particular occasion the truck skidded on a patch ofoil. As a consequence the truck collided with an unaccompanied visitorand crushed the visitor's leg. (a) Outline reasons why the accident should be investigated. (4) (b) The initial responses of reporting and securing the scene of the ac-cident have been carried out. Outline the actions which should be tak-en in order to collect evidence for an investigation of the accident. (8)
1. to identify breach of law, effectiveness of management 2. To obtain information for insurers, claim for damage to plant, possible civil claim,
criminal defence; 3. Identify causes (immediate and underlying) 4. Prevent it happening again5. To show management commitment, restore employee morale
6. To collect Data for accident costing
7. To Identify of trends
8. To Identify need to review risk assessment.
1. Photograph, sketch, measure relevant parts of accident scene, CCTV;
2. examine condition of FLT (brakes, steering, tyres, horn etc); 3. inspect maintenance records, defect reports (previous FLT oil leakages),4. are daily check sheets used;5. reason not used on this occasion;6. inspect/examine loads carried (safe working load) 7. examine working practices, time pressures, overtime records
8. ; examine operating procedures, written instructions, visitors procedures, riskassessments;
9. View competence of operator training records;10. interview relevant people examination of workplace/environment,
An investigation reveals that there have been previous forklift truckskidding incidents which had not been reported and the companytherefore decides to introduce a formal system for reporting 'nearmiss' incidents. Outline the factors that should be consideredwhen developing and implementing such a system. (8)
Outline a range of external individuals and bodies to whom,for legal or good practice reasons, an organisation mayneed to provide health and safety information AND inEACH case, state the broad type of information to beprovided. (10)
3. Courts - legal proceedings / statements / disclosure - criminal and civil; 4. Contractors - induction, site rules, PTW procedures etc; 5. Clients - during selection process - policy, risk assessments, enforcement
record;6. Customers - Health and Safety at Work Act Section 6 information re safety of
goods, articles, substances;7. Professional bodies - IOSH etc - in relation to campaigns / research
8. The emergency services - COMAH; emergency planning; stock of chemicalsetc;
9. Training organisations - before sending people on work experience - H&S(Training for Employment) Regulations;
10. Employees - HSWA S2 & MHSWR - information on risks to their H&S etc. AlsoH&S (Information for Employees) Regulations - H&S at Work poster - specificinfo
(a) Organisations are said to have both for-mal and informal structures and groups.Outline the difference between “formal”AND “informal” in this context. (6)
1. Hierarchical 2. well-defined structure,3. roles and responsibilities, lines of communication4. Organisation charts
Informal =1. social and personal relationships or contacts2. Is based on individual / personal influence; 3. less structural4. can act so as to by-pass formal systems and procedures5. Can be undermining to defined roles and responsibilites
1. Initially, the health and safety professional might advise on the re-quirements of the Safety Representatives and Safety CommitteesRegulations and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employ-ees) Regulations
2. Advise on the good and accepted practices to be followed both bysafety committees and safety representatives;
3. Make proposals for local arrangements for formal consultation; 4. offer advice and support for the training arrangements of safety
representatives and representatives of employee safety
5.
arrange for the necessary resources to be provided to enable themto carry out their duties.
6. Encourage senior management to take an active part in both for-mal and informal consultation and to respond promptly to pro-posals made and concerns expressed during the consultation pro-cess.
The HSE publication “Successful H&S Management” (HSG65)describes a model of H&S management in which the“organising” element requires control, co-operation, commu-nication and competence. Outline using practical examples,what “co-operation” means in this context. (6)
Change can result in lack of focus on H&S matters-
other issues takepriority;
2. loss of skills / competence (staff leave/move);3. require people to take up new roles for which they lack competence;4. uncertainty about future - redundancy etc results in a lack of confi-
dence / mistrust of management5. perception that H&S is not a concern;6. increased outsourcing - contractors etc bring a different culture;7. movement of staff breaks up units / groups and undermines established
systems / culture;
8. breakdown in normal arrangements for consultation and communica-tion with staff ;
9. new relationships need to be established;10. re-allocation of budgets;11. New ways of working may result in unforeseen hazards / risks arising;12. increase in accidents / ill-health due to disruption -
Health and Safety at Work Act presents a number of opportunities for indi-viduals to be prosecuted for breaches of duties under the Act.
Assuming that the individuals are employed within a large company, outline the circumstances under which they may be prosecuted for such breaches. (10)
Explain with reference to case law, the meaning of theterms `practicable' and `reasonably practicable' as theyapply to health and safety legislation. (10)
'Practicable' means that there must be compliance with the duty as far astechnical and practical feasibility allows; within current knowledge and inven-tion; with no reference to cost; though not an absolute duty, “practicable”is of a higher standard than that of 'reasonably practicable.' Adsett v. K&LSteelfounders and Engineers Ltd (1953), Marshall v Gotham [1954]
'Reasonably practicable' requirements are those1. A balance is made between risk and cost (in terms of money, time and
trouble)
2.
e met when the cost of further control is grossly disproportionate to anyreduction in risk. Controls in proportion to risk. Edwards v National CoalBoard [1949]
money, time, effort2. Lack of training / competence in Health & Safety expertise3. Lack of trust and confidence of the workforce in the ability of management to
manage safety
4. Lack of effective communication on Health & Safety matters; 5. Management setting a poor example;6. Lack of commitment of management and / or of the workforce;7. Low level of motivation (at all levels); 8. Inconsistent decision making; 9. Unclear priorities - production v safety conflicts;10. Established negative culture - peer pressure, blame culture etc
11. Resistance of both management and the workforce to change (possible im-pacts on productivity / pay / bonuses)
12. High staff turnover - makes it difficult to establish a fixed “culture”; 13. Low status of H&S and of the H&S advisor / dept;14. variations in cultures / language etc of workforce; 15. Lack of expertise in implementing cultural change; 16. Multi-sites different attitudes
Clear description of the activity / area to which the SSOW applies;2. Significant risks/hazards involved in the task;3. people involved in the activity4. Anyone who should be excluded from the activity (eg young persons, etc);5. level of training or competence required;6. arrangements for supervision;7. arrangements for control or co-ordination of the work;8. detailed risk control steps to be taken;9. description of any plant and equipment required for the work;10. description of any PPE required;11. requirements for any job-specific instruction or briefing for those involved;
12. arrangements for communication between personnel involved in the work;13. emergency arrangements;14. Whether a PTW is required;15. arrangements for safe completion/withdrawal of precautions;16. arrangements for communication with others working in the area/who might
be affected; 17. formal approval/signature of authorising manager/date;18. review date
A workman fell to his death while repairing a road bridge over the riverClyde.
Mr. Armour was the director of Roads for the regional Council He had a responsibility for supervising the safety of road workers He had not produced a written safety policy for such work.
He was prosecuted under Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety atWork, etc. Act 1974 which imposes personal liability on senior execu-tives.
Mr. Armours’ defence was that he was under no personal duty to carryout the Council’s statutory duties, one of which was the formulation of adetailed safety policy for the roads department.
This was rejected
This he had failed to do and was therefore found guilty of an offence.
A miner was killed when a section of the road on which he was travelling collapsed.
The section of the road concerned had no timber supports, although other sections wereproperly supported.
The Coal Board stated that the cost of supporting all roads was disproportionate in relationto the risk.
Lord Asquith, the judge in the case, said that a balance had to be made in deciding whetherit would have been reasonably practicable to have taken the precaution of providing sup-ports for the section of road which collapsed.
The balance was struck by weighing the level of risk involved (the danger of collapse andloss of life) against the level of sacrifice involved (the cost, time and trouble).
If there was a gross disproportion between the two and the risk was insignificant to the cost,there would be no requirement to take the additional precautions.
However, in this particular case the costs of making safe should have been applied.