Hello and welcome to
Connect
Hello and welcome to another issue of Connect.
Lord Young used his keynote speech at the IOSH 10 conference in
Glasgow to challenge the health and safety profession to raise
standards – a charge that bemused some delegates as well as IOSH
Chief Executive Rob Strange.
Although he praised the profession for making the UK one of the
safest places to work in Europe, Lord Young – who headed up the
Conservative Party’s review into health and safety – ignored the
achievements of IOSH’s drive to raise skills and competency.
Instead he said that IOSH needs to look at the standards of its own
members and blamed health and safety professionals for making
health and safety “at best an object of ridicule and at worst a
bureaucratic nightmare”.
IOSH Chief Executive Rob Strange said: “We invited Lord Young to
speak at our conference because we were keen to engage in any
well-informed review of the wider cultural issues that appear to be
getting in the way of intelligent health and safety. Yet, despite
meeting him twice to brief him for his review, he quite clearly
hasn’t taken in some of the facts.” You can read IOSH’s news
release about the speech
here.
Despite criticisms of IOSH and the profession as a whole, Lord
Young’s speech provoked a strong debate from delegates, and he
thanked the audience for not throwing bottles at him!
In this issue of Connect, we introduce the first in a
new series of comment articles. On the back of the Policy Exchange
report into health and safety published recently, guest contributor
Simon Cordall looks at why the central thrust of the report is
misguided.
We also end our series of workplace violence articles with a
look at how to form policies and procedures to identify, prevent
and deal with bullying at work.
As well as features, we’ve an IOSH conference round-up and
information on how the Department for Work and Pensions has
provided detailed guidance on the new fit note system.
If you have any comments to make about Connect, please email me
or call me on +44 (0)116 257 3254.
Thanks for reading.
Shaun Gibbons
e-Editor, IOSH