Jacks Cards Flashcards
Legal criteria that must be satisfied to obtain a conviction under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
The organisation may be found guilty of an offence under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 if:
- The way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a person’s death and amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care.
- The organisation’s conduct must have fallen far below the standard of what could have reasonably been expected and a substantial part of the failure within the organisation must have been at a senior management level.
Legal Reason to Manage Health and Safety
PPC
Preventative – Enforcement Notices
Punitive – Fines and Imprisonment (Criminal Courts)
Compensatory – Compensation claims (Civil Courts
Strengths of using accident rates as a measure of health and safety performance
- Can be used as a measurable number with defined criteria
- Provide an easy way of plotting trends and that they represent categories of loss events which have happened, and which are undesirable
The weaknesses of using accident rates as a measure of health and safety performance.
Rates give a historic measure but not a prediction of future performance
They indicate the effectiveness of previous rather than current safety measures
Accidents may not be reported or recorded
Number of accidents may often be too small to be used as a statistically reliable performance absence of accidents does not mean that procedures currently in place are safe
Rates do not provide a measure of the actual or potential severity of an accident nor do they identify high consequence, low probability risk
Minor accidents, near misses and other such incidents are not included
Rates do not reflect the presence of any chronic health issues
Differences in the interpretation of the word ‘accident’
Way in which contractors or part-time workers are treated may make the data and their comparison invalid.
Benefits for effective health and safety management
Benefits / Reasons
- Better health and safety performance which will reduce the number of accidents and incidents
- Greater awareness of legal requirements which will reduce the chances of committing an offence
- Improved relationships and morale as employees see that their health and safety is being looked after
- Improved image and positive PR from a publicly responsible attitude towards worker safety
- Greater business efficiency which will in return reduce costs
- Reduced insurance premiums by demonstrating better risk control
- Greater confidence from banks and investors by showing more effective risk management systems
Reasons for introducing health and safety management systems.
Reasons / Benefits
- Offer a framework for management to focus on in order to manage health and safety and improve the business
- Better health and safety performance, which will reduce the costs from accidents and incidents
- Greater awareness of legal requirements, which will reduce the chances of committing an offence.
- Improved relations and morale as employees see that their health and safety is being looked after.
- Improved image and positive public relations from a publicly responsible attitude towards employees.
- Greater business efficiency which will reduce costs.
- Reduced insurance premiums, by demonstrating more effective risk control.
- Greater confidence from banks and investors by showing more effective risk management systems.
How might the below might influence health and
safety standards and priorities.
Societal factors that influence H&S standards / priorities include:
• Economic climate - austerity, cuts in funding, competition, labour shortages, H&S given lower priority
• Government policy - / priorities / initiatives / campaigns, new legislation introduced – is likely to direct companies’ focus on those areas and distract from others
• Industry / business risk profile – higher risks equate to more controls and vice versa
• Globalisation of business - dealing with different cultures and legislative requirements / standards - Difficulty in establishing a consistent “corporate” system / approach
• Migrant workers - language difficulties, different cultures / attitudes
• National levels of sickness absence and incapacity - government initiatives / legislation – Equality Act e.g. “fit note”, requirements to make reasonable adjustments
Potential sources of financial loss arising from accidents and incidents.
Safety administration and investigation costs:
• Medical costs
• Cost of lost time of injured employee
• Cost of replacement labour / re training
• Costs of welfare (or other) payments (made by company) to employee
• Cost of lost production / shutdown / investigation time
• Cost of repair/replacement of damaged plant/equipment including both Labour and Materials cost
• Cost of damaged materials / equipment etc.
• Lost business due to damage to reputation
Purpose of Health and Safety Policy in relation to Health and Safety Management
Legally required Section 2 (3) HSWA where there are 5 or more employees
• Consist of the statement of intent, organisation, and arrangements sections
• Tells people about a company‘s approach to managing health and safety
• Communicates the organisation’s commitment to health and safety to existing employees
• Describes key roles as regards H&S
• Gives an overview of H&S arrangements, procedures etc
It can be used:
• In the induction of new employees (to stress the importance of safety)
• To involve workforce representatives in writing and amending the policy when necessary.
• At regular briefing sessions to communicate information relating to different sections of the policy.
Arrangements for implement a safety policy
- MHSWR 1999 – Regulation 5.
- (1) Every employer shall make and give effect to such arrangements as are appropriate, having regard to the nature of his activities and the size of his undertaking, for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventative and protective measures
- (2) Where the employer employs five or more employees, he shall record the arrangements referred in paragraph (1)
Benefits of integrated health, safety, and environment management systems
- More cost effective than separate systems and can facilitate decision making that best reflects the overall needs to the organisation
- Offers the prospect of more rewarding career opportunities for specialists in each discipline
- Positive culture in one discipline may be carried over to others
- Objectives and process of management systems are the same
- Integration should lead to the avoidance of duplication i.e. audits and paperwork etc
- Increased compatibility from timely overall system reviews
Advantages of introducing an integrated health, safety, and environment management system
- Likely to operate more cost-effectively than separate systems, and facilitate decision-making that best reflects the overall needs of the organisation
- Offers the prospect of more rewarding career opportunities for specialists in each discipline
- The objectives and processes of management systems are essentially the same
- Integration should lead to the avoidance of duplication
- Integration should reduce the possibility of resolving problems at the expense of creating new difficulties in other disciplines
- A positive culture in one discipline may be carried over to others.
Limitations of integrated health, safety, and environment management systems
- Existing systems may already work fine and changing them may affect the coherence and consistency of the current arrangements
- A negative culture in one topic may be carried over to others
- A powerful integrated team may reduce ownership of the topics by managers
- Auditors of single topics may have difficulty evaluating an integrated system due to some parts intertwined and have no relevancy
- HSE performance underpinned by statute law, quality is more customer requirements
Advantages of HSG65
• A management system model the HSE have championed for years, its simple and straightforward for all types of companies to implement without too much trouble
Reasons for introducing health and safety management systems
Reasons / Benefits
- Provides a framework for management to focus on the manage health and safety
- Provides a framework to co-ordinate activities to deliver agreed objectives
- Ensures appropriate allocation of resources i.e. Financial such as training, plant tool and equipment and manpower
- Ensures the appropriate allocation of responsibilities to deliver effective health and safety management in the organisation
- Ensures the setting and monitoring of performance standards to enable the intention of the policy is transferred into action and that shortcomings are identified through monitoring and continuous improvement
- Ensures feedback and implementation of corrective action this ensures anything fed back to the appropriate people from monitoring and auditing etc is actioned and implemented.
