Posted By Paul Craythorne John, I empathise with you. I had a similar experience at my previous company where I was looking after 2 sites (125 miles apart) and trying to put in place ISO14001 at the same time as dragging their H&S management system into the 21st Century. I have to admit that without any assistance in the first 12 months, H&S suffered and I only reacted to situations most of the time. Eventually the two sites realised the extent of the workload and appointed full time HS&E Co-ordinators at each site. Although these individuals were a 'God Send' to me, they had no real HS&E knowledge or experience so they had to do some fast tracking on courses etc. to get to a level whereby they could be of some value to me. I have now decided that my next challenge is self employment. I am starting up my own HS&E consultancy business in April so if you want any help drop me an e-mail. Best of luck and keep pushing for the additional resources you need. Regards, Paul Craythorne

Posted By ian mcnally Hi John, Join the club, so to speak. In fact when you discuss this issue with most safety professionals one of the most familiar areas of frustration is lack of resource. I have often asked the question of others and in some cases have had a rather patronising response, some have even had the cheek to suggest that I wasn’t sending the popper message to the right management level. To my knowledge there is no guidance on this subject. I have heard a FIOSH member suggest using 0.01% of turnover as a guide but they were unable to suggest where this figure came from. It would make things simpler but no doubt plenty would provide good reasons why it can’t be a simple percentage of companies turnover. High production material costs etc. The former respondent did I believe hit the nail on the head by suggesting a “gap analysis” and I’m sure your aware it’s a flash title for a report that just identifies what the company isn’t doing. This approach certainly did the trick for me. I did my own and an easy way of doing one is to use HSG 64 to set your parameters. It is likely you will come to the conclusion that some form of integrated management system will be necessary but this doesn’t have to be so complex if your organisation isn’t. To be honest once you have an effective set of procedures in place you just have to be able to demonstrate that you are doing what you say your doing. ISO 18000 14001 etc etc is all great but we only going down that route to enable our clients to prove they are using a competent organisation, bit sad really but there you have it. If you want a rough “gap analysis” format, I will be happy to sort one out. It will only be a developed version of what a fellow safety advisor / friend sent me and I will have to delete certain information but it could be useful, not to mention a lot cheaper that outsourcing. May even get you a few brownie points by your employer ….or sacked! Good luck whatever