Unit A 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
PPCS
Preventative – Enforcement Notices
Punitive – Fines and Imprisonment (Criminal Courts)
Compensatory – Compensation claims (Civil Courts)
Principles of Self regulation
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
B.G.I.I.G.R.G
- 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.
Economic Climate Government policy Industry / Business risk profile Globalisation of business Migrant workers Notional level of sickness absence and incapacity
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.
7 costs
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
Benefits to the organisation of effective health and safety management.
Benefits include:
• 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 from showing more effective risk management systems
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.
Elements of HSG65
Elements of ISO 45001
- HSG65 – PDCA – Plan, Do, Check, Act
- P.P.R.I.O.M.I.R.L
• ISO45001 – Planning, Support and Operation, Performance Evaluation, Continual Improvement
PPICCMC
Range of consequences that may affect a company as a result of a serious incident.
Consequences of incident include:
• Criminal prosecution and penalties (EA / HSE)
• Civil actions - damages / claims
• Remediation / clean-up cost
• Lost production / orders
• Expenditure on investigation
• Business continuity
• Remedial action
• PR etc resulting in reduced profitability; reputational damage - both customers / clients and local community / general public
• Higher insurance / difficulty in insuring
• Damage to staff morale / confidence
• Difficulty in retaining / recruiting staff
• Restrictions imposed by regulators (licences / permissioning regimes)
• Damage to shareholder confidence / trust
Explain the purpose of the Turnbull / Financial Reporting Council Guidelines on “internal control”
Purpose of Turnbull guidelines:
• Designed to ensure effective risk management processes are in place.
• Guidelines advocate clear policy and commitment
• Risk evaluation through a process of risk assessment
• Management processes that control risk to an acceptable level
• Monitoring arrangements
• Clear communication and reporting arrangements
• A process of internal audit
• An annual board level review of risk controls and a statement to shareholders on outcomes.
As such Turnbull aims to:
• safeguard shareholder investment
• minimise losses and increase profitability
• assist in compliance with legal obligations
What are the benefits of an integrated health and safety, environmental and quality management system
Benefits from retaining separate systems might include:
• Providing a more flexible approach tailored to business needs in terms of system complexity and operating philosophy (eg. Safety standards must be underpinned by legal minima but not so for quality standards
• The need for a more complex system in one element may not be mirrored by a similar need in the other two elements
• Existing systems may work well and the process of integration may expend unnecessary resources and affect their overall effectiveness
• 3 separate systems might be clearer for external stakeholders or regulators to work with and may encourage a more detailed approach to auditing and standards.
UK Data sources for accidents / ill health and work
- HSE Annual injury / ill-health statistics
- Labour force survey data
- Insurance companies
- Employment medical advisory services (EMAS)
- RoSPA
- British Safety Council
- WHO
- ILO (International Labour Organisation)
- IOSH
- Trade Associations
- Trade Unions
UK Data sources for accidents / ill health and work
- HSE publish annual injury and ill-health statistics
- Labour Force Survey data (published by HSE) indicates scale of occupational ill-health - shows large numbers of people suffering from work related ill- health
- ill-health data from health service reporting
- ill-health data from occupational physicians THOR / SWORD etc.
- ill-health data from RIDDOR
- Mortality and disease rates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- DWP – Industrial Injuries Compensation Scheme – e.g. HAVS, NIHL, asbestos-related disease etc
Legal requirements employer must make when appointing an HSE advisor
- Assistant is to be competent
- One or more persons as necessary
- If two or more, arrangements for co-operations
- Number of assistants and time sufficient for organisations size, risk, and risk distribution
- Preference for internal appointments
- Information on health and safety issues to be provided to the external appointees
- Exemptions for partnerships where partner is sufficiently competent
Role of the health and safety professional when designing the H&S management system
Key elements of strategic role include:
• formulating and developing elements of the health and safety Management system
• developing/agreeing a suitable safety policy statement
• developing and agreeing plans for improvement including short and long-term targets
• involvement in reactive monitoring such as reporting and accident investigation
• involvement in proactive monitoring such as inspections and audits
• Developing/agreeing plans to improve safety culture
• organising and participating in review arrangements
• Managing relationships with enforcing bodies
• advising senior managers / Board on strategic safety issues
• Co-ordination and support issues of a health and safety department
Purpose of performance measurement
Performance measurement provides information on progress and status of risk controls and strategies and allows you to see:
- Current position relative to H&S aims and objectives
- How well hazards and risks are being controlled
- How the organisation compares to others – benchmarking
It also;
• Enables learning from failures – corrective action
• Helps with decision making regarding resources etc
• Maintains and improves the safety management system
How societal factors influence health and safety standards and priorities
- Economic Climate - Healthier countries can afford to give OHS a higher priority
- Government Policies – Those who work are likely to be healthier than those who do not, improving workers health will help keep people at work and this can contribute financially to society
- Migrant workers – cultural and communication issues effecting health and safety standards
- Globalisation – businesses that operate around the world may adopt different standards
- Business risk profile – higher risk activities require better OHS standards i.e. nuclear
- Societal expectations of equality – can determine standards and priorities for workers who have disabilities etc.
Potential costs to the employer which may arise from a work related ill health scenario
- Compensation costs from civil action cases
- Legal fees from civil action
- Fines / prosecution costs
- Medical treatment costs where not on NHS
- Risk control re-design of process
- Loss of production / expertise
- Lost time for medical assessments etc.
- Overtime costs for cover
- Costs of recruitment for replacement employee / temp labour
- Investigation time
- Increased insurance premiums
Ways in which an H&S practitioner could evaluate and develop their own practice
A H&S practitioner could evaluate their own practice (= performance / standards) by:
• Reviewing / evaluating their organisation’s H&S performance and attainment levels / trends - possible indication of the H&S practitioner’s effectiveness
• Reviewing the impact of changes / recommendations / interventions they have made
• Setting personal objectives / goals / targets
• Monitoring / reviewing their performance against targets
• Benchmarking their performance against recognised professional standards (e.g. IOSH) / against standards set by other practitioners / against published / recognised standards of good practice
• Evaluating feedback from clients
• Evaluating feedback from managers during appraisal
• Evaluating feedback from others within / outside the organisation
• Reviewing failures / unsuccessful initiatives
• By seeking advice from other H&S professionals / taking criticism well
Could develop (= improve / enhance) their own practice by:
• study / gaining recognised relevant qualifications
• undertaking ongoing training / updates / CPD
• Attending seminars, conferences, lectures
• Networking / consulting with experts, professional bodies
• Ensuring access to relevant up-to-date information sources - publications, web etc
• Seeking advice from other competent professionals
• Following a personal development plan
• Secondments / placements.
Possible costs to an organisation if a H&S management system is not implemented effectively
- Civil Claims / Civil Legal Costs / Criminal fines from increased accidents in the workplace
- Poor awareness of legal requirements, which will increase the chances of committing an offence.
- Poor relations and poor morale as employees see that their health and safety is being neglected
- Poor image and negative public relations from a poor safety management system and culture
- Poor business efficiency, which will increase costs.
- Increased insurance premiums for poor risk control
- No confidence from banks and investors, unable to get loans etc.
Meaning of the term ethics
• Ethics is concerned with moral issues i.e. the judgments we make and our resulting conduct
Prescriptive & Goal Setting Legislation
• Prescriptive details specifically what the duty holder should do in detailed terms
• Goal setting specifies a broad objective to be achieved and leaves it to the duty holder to decide the best way to achieve the goal
HASAWA is an example of goal setting legislation. for example, “every Employer shall, so far as is reasonably practicable ensure
Advantages and Disadvantages of prescriptive legislation
• Advantages
o Little interpretation required
o Relatively easy to enforce
o Same standard required for all
o Does not require a high level of expertise to interpret
• Disadvantages
o Inflexible
o May not be wholly appropriate for the circumstances
o Will need more frequent revision as technology advanced
Advantages and Disadvantages of goal setting legislation
• Advantages
o Gives more flexibility on interpretation
o Can be related to an actual risk in the workplace
o Less likely to need revision
o Applies to a broader range of workplaces
• Disadvantages
o Standard required may not be clear until further guidance is published
o More difficult to enforce
o Needs a higher level of expertise and interpretation
o Will lead to differing standards due to differing interpretation
Ratio Decidendi
“The reason for the decision
• A statement of law based on an examination of the facts and the legal issues surrounding them. This is the most important part of a judgment and contains the actual binding precedent
Obiter Dicta
“Words by the way”
• These may contain a statement about the law which is not based on the facts of the case under review and which will not therefore be part of the decision. This is often held to be a persuasive authority
Three underpinning ethics of a safety practitioner
- Integrity - Honest, law-abiding, avoid conflicts of interest
- Competence – Maintains CPD
- Respect – Rights and Privacy
What is meant by conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs where a person’s professional judgement is influenced by other considerations, such as the possibility of personal gain / benefit.
Employers duties under regulation 5 Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations
same POCMR OF PP MEASURES
- —(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 preventive and protective measures.
In writing if 5 or more employees
How compliance with the corporate risk management principles set down in the ‘Turnbull Report’ on ‘Internal Control’ could support good health and safety management in an organisation.
Compliance with Turnbull Report supports good H&S management because Turnbull advocates:
• Clear policy and commitment
• Risk evaluation through a process of risk assessment
• Management processes that control risk to an acceptable level
• Monitoring arrangements
• Clear communication and reporting arrangements
• Internal audit processes
• Annual Board level review of risk controls
• A statement to shareholders on outcomes
Factors that should be considered in order to help ensure the successful implementation of
a H&S management system
4 C’s
- Competence/training of yourself and staff so that everyone has the knowledge, skills and experience to work in a safe and healthy manner and whether external expertise is required
- Control – Are people appointed in suitable roles with clear responsibilities
- Co-operation – consider regular meetings with employees at all levels to discuss safety issues. Appointment of Safety Representative and Safety Committee to provide a recognised link between employees and management and provision of systems for staff to feedback?
- Communication – How is information provided e.g. posters, notices, training packages to employees and visitors. Ensure that feedback is given to employees to encourage maintenance of high Health and Safety standards.
