Posted By Raymond Rapp
Nigel,

It is an interesting observation but..there is a legal requirement under the MHSWRegs to provide for implementing, monitoring etc. Therefore, organisations need to make suitable arrangements to ensure that these are properly managed and controlled. That said, it is up to the individual organisations to choose the best methods.

Also, even with a suitable safety management system in place it does not necessarily ensure that safety is properly managed. All systems will have their own vulnerabilities and it would appear the more complex that system is, the more likely it will be breached. I could think of many such examples but due to 'economy' I will not attempt to give examples.

The notion that by implementing a management system will itself provide a safe environment is a myth. There is in my opinion far too much prescriptive safety or 'paper' safety already. No matter how robust a management system is on paper, it will still be vulnerable to the human interface, and most accidents occur due to 'latent failures' of the management e.g. poor training, inadequate or impractical procedures, poor supervision, accident investigations etc.

I believe the time has come to ensure that those safety regulations that are already in place are properly observed and those who do not comply are suitably addressed. Rather than bringing more regulations, after all, a SMS is no more than a collective means of ensuring that safety is properly managed.

Regards

Ray

Regards

Ray

Posted By Jay Joshi
We have moved away from prescriptive legislation.

Regulation 5 of Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 is explicit in context of effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures and where the employer employs five or more employees to record the arrangements. The ACoP(ACoP's have a legal status!) and guidance to regulation 5 has more details on how to comply.

It is more a matter of walking the walk compared to talking the talk. As Ray has pointed out, in many cases the "paperwork" gets more importance than the real issues.

However, when such management sytems are properly implemented and used, they can be very beneficial. It is also an enforcement issue. I could only find a total of 26 successful prosecutions for both the 92 & 99 Managemnt Regulations on the HSE enforcement database! This data is from April 1999.


Lastly, SME's cannot afford costs associated with independent & external certification.

It is likely that the drivers for implementation may not be legislative, but supply chain led.

One factor that can "revitalise" this is publication of the long awaited HSE commissioned "management standards index" tool and if viable, its publication as formal HSE guidance.Such a tool will provide HSe & local authorities a robust means to measure compliance more effectively

Posted By Rex Harrison
Where safety is controlled by the collective such as your larger companies then in order to achieve this H&S Management Systems are critical.
As long as they have all the components of a good system and the system is followed, whether certified or not H&S should be ensured. Like the CE mark, some times certification can be worthless.

With 18001 as long as continued improvement can be shown then the system appears to work. But in my opinion a non conformity could result in a serious incident before it is identified by an audit etc.

What drives successful H&S management is competent advise, leading to competent direction of competent managers, managing a competent workforce.

The threat of enforcement action is what influences good direction in my experience.
To compare driving a company to driving a car: if your caught dangerous driving there's a good chance you'll lose your license, yet all to often it is percieved that those in the company driving seat get away scott free. If a similar approach was enthusiastically enforced in the realms of H&S I'm sure H&S would be enthusiastically driven from the top.

Posted By Neil Pearson
As everyone has pointed out, a safety management system is a legal requirement. Reg5 of MHSWR calls this "arrangements", but we know what's what.

I guess the point of the original post is whether CERTIFIED management systems are a good thing. On the surface this seems so, but experience in the environmental sector suggests otherwise.

The Environment Agency has been suggesting that uptake of ISO 14001 will help them target their regulatory efforts better, but it is emerging that certified management systems guarantee nothing. They are too easy to get and do not improve performance, except of course for companies that really mean it. Every month I read about embarrassed firms being prosecuted for serious breaches, and many of them have ISO 14001.

Certified management systems would be alot more useful for regulation if the certification process was more rigorous and were subject to real performance objectives.