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Posted By Dave Wilson
What qualifications do I need to become a freelane Risk assessor??
Dont want to harp on again about our profession and Chartered Status etc but if someone with extremely limited knowledge can set themselves up to undertake Risk Assessments to advice business then it is no wonder we are seen as silly old men in grey suits who cost us money.
Good luck to the entrepenuer, but jings crivens help me boab!!!!! get insurance mate cos you may need it!
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Posted By Tony Birchall
Surely this is the purpose of RSP.
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Posted By Gavin Gibson
The issue is one of competency - relevant experience, qualifications and technical knowledge. Any company must ensure that its HSE advise is competent. Technically you could set up as a freelance risk assessor with no qualifications or experience, but you would have major liability factors when something went wrong. That obviously assumes that you could get professional indemnity insurance.
Basically the onus is on the company contracting a risk assessor to be sure of their competency, usually through a mix of qualifications and professional membership.
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Posted By Ashley Williams
David,
I know what you mean. My old manager when I worked in the voluntary sector used to do consultancy for a large council in the midlands. He had no qualifications at all which I found quite comical as he kept winning the tenders each year. Could be a case of the council decideing it didnt matter as long as it was cheapest?
Ashley
P.S on a side not can I buy Concorde of your bosses for £1?
Ash
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Posted By Dave Wilson
I will certainly put a good word forward for you mate but you won't be able to fly it as the company who supply the technical support and spares will no longer be doing so after Oct 2003. So whoever gets them will not be able to fly them commercialy.
It's old 60's technology, noisy, environmentally unfriendly and guzzels fuel but hey what an aircraft.
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Posted By Alan Harwood
I happened to notice this week, whilst browsing the Enforcement section of the HSE website, that a local (to me) company were served an Improvement Notice because;
the appointed competent person "...has not had sufficient training in health and safety, and has no formal qualifications in health and safety, therefore he can not be regarded as competent for the purposes of the Regulations"
Hope the HSE have plenty inspectors. This surely applies to the majority of SME's out there!
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Posted By David Scott
Alan,
As the outgoing HASMAN for a Low Tier COMAH site and being replaced by someone not qualified (much to my disgust and against my advice!), I am interested in the case you mentioned Alan.
I've tried the HSE site but maybe I'm not as IT literate as I would like to be, to pin it down and emonstrate to the powers here what can happen!
They are to give him training (BSC DipSM) but I believe this will still leave the Company vulnerable!
Regards
Dave
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Posted By Laurie
This reminds me of an incident some years ago when I was assisting with a health and safety inspection at a military establishment.
A senior officer said to my principal, a corporate member of IOSH, "How do you get onto this health and safety lark anyway? I rather fancy having a go myself when I retire."!!!!
Laurie
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Posted By Dave Wilson
Being Ex military myself I know exactly where you are coming from!
As part of an EVT course run to prepare you for leaving the Forces you could do a NEBSM and NEBOSH Cert before you left as it was better than 4 weeks bricklaying or washing machine servicing and hey presto H&S Manager.
Think its all about the Qualifications AND AND AND relevant experience.
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Posted By Jim Walker
Dave,
Do you sometimes wish you had taken the bricklaying option?
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Posted By Dave Wilson
Probably get more sense out of a Brick and some Mortar than some of the people around today.
I despair sometimes mate in that some people do not understand what 'HS&E' is all about.
Andy Shaw had a brilliant article in the SHP about how we try and achieve the legal minimum standard, this would not be allowed in any other customer focused business as they would not survive.
We still harp on about Robens etc but this is 50 years on, we need to take our profession, kicking and screaming necessary, into this century and this chappie does our profession no good at all.
Here's one, H&S Consultancy looking for H&S Professional with NEBOSH Cert??? whats that all about then??
Robens, Microchip GSM Mobile phones etc doesn't sound right think we need to move with the times mate and put our profession on the map so to speak.
Think its time I went home.
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Posted By Geoff Burt
I'm not really sure what the discussion is about but that's never stopped me before!
It's part of the society we live in that there is an opportunity to start up a business in a number of disciplines. Examples are estate agencies, travel agents, management consultants and H&S. You even hear of pseudo dentists and doctors bluffing their way into senior positions.
Its also true to say that proficiencies vary amongst the different professions - a reality we have to live with. I'm sure we all think we are superb drivers, but some of us must be wrong.
To turn to the point Dave made in his last contribution - what is wrong with a consultancy taking on someone with a certificate only. Surely competence depends on more than a certicate or are we going to completely ignore experience?
And more to the point if that person has experience and is closely supervised and only does work within his/her competence then what is the criticism, and who are we to criticise when we don't know all the facts?
If we start worrying about every little thing we start to lose the bigger picture.
Geoff
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Posted By Dave Wilson
Take the point Geoff but as you say if someone is experienced then why do they need close supervision?
Wasnt getting at consultancies so to speak, but are they not supposed to be the 'consultant expert' and therefore you would expect them to give expert advice,is this not what the client wants or demands, and with a NEBOSH cert are they really an expert?
Any business will try and use the least expensive resource to get the best return, Quote a job @ &100 an hour to a client with an 'overseer' of MIOSH, RSP etc and send a less experienced colleage to do the work or am I just being cynical. Would be interesting to get a consultants point of view here but time is money my son!
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Posted By Hilary Charlton
Competency
A person shall be deemed competent by "training and experience or knowledge and other qualities". Who are we to say what these other qualities are? I have personally been pondering this question for a while - if anyone out there knows the answer to "other qualities" please feel free to share it!
Hilary
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Posted By Geoff Burt
'... but as you say if someone is experienced then why do they need close supervision?'
You know the answer to that Dave. Even with experience and qualifications, and whoever it was, you would need to see what their approach was, and how they went about the job, their dealings with and attitude to the client, and their 'easiness' with the subject and so on. Once that is sorted out the supervision would be more relaxed - isn't that how we all work in any job?
But to get back to the topic - you seem to be assuming a certificate holder is not competent - where does that assumption come from if you have no further information about the persons experience or attitude?
One simple example is DSE assessment - could a certificate holder not be an expert? Of course they could.
There are a lot of people out there Dave who do a good job but have simply not had the opportunity to take time out to study any further than the certificate, or who cannot afford the fees. It doesn't mean they are incompetent, and it could be considered unreasonable to judge people purely by paper qualifications.
Geoff
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Posted By Geoff Burt
Dave
PS: We'll be more than happy to quote against your consultants if they are getting £100 an hour. Mind you we might have a problem with qualifications!!!
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Posted By David Edward Partington
Hi David, sounds like you have had a bad day.
My company has started to "anoy" me and to be frank it is simpler to move on then to become too frustrated.
Think about it.
Regards
David Partington.
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Posted By Dave Wilson
I'm sat here giggling to myself about the last couple of postings, written communication can be taken in a number of differing ways in which, I suppose, your starting viewpoint is.
Dont think I ever said that Cert holder were not competent some are and some are most definately not!!
That can also be about the MIOSH,RSP some are good and some are not.
What I was trying to say was that a chap wants advice on this 'Risk assessment' thing as he can see a loophole in the market to do this and wants advice on what qualifications he needs.
As far as DSE goes you certainly do not need a NEBOSH Cert to do this type of RA, common sense and bit of Ergonomics is all that is required, so might as well go and do the job for that London Borough that is offering £250 a day to do them.
10 days a month £50k a year Brills
Or can have MCIEH, MIOSH,RSP Spec Dip Env Man and get a paltry amount blah blah bla!!
could go on again about this.
Not kidding with the £100 an hour bit,WAS Me!That was the company going rate, and after work was priced at that rate a junior with NO qualifications, went and did the work, I left when I found out, but this also included disbursements, do other Chartered Freelance Consultants not charge this as well???
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