Posted By Stuart Nagle I attended a meeting of an Industry sector body the other day, also attended by HSE regularly. It was interesting to note that during the meeting one of the HSE officials attending declared that HSE will be moving away from writing/producing 'guidance' in the future to concentrate on enforcement (efficiencies!!) and will be be expecting trade bodies, trade organisations and industries to produce their own guidance relevant to the industry sector. Food for thought....

Posted By Jay Joshi This is one of the questions/issues under consultation in the HSC's document "A Strategy for Workplace Health and Safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond" The consultation ended on 1 December 2003. In fact in some areas, the HSE has been doing just that. The detailed technical guidance for storage & use of LPG is from LPGA--not from HSE. The same applies to "Petrol filling stations : construction and operation" - HS(G)41-This has been superseded by, "Guidance for the design, construction, modification and maintenance of filling stations." from The Institute of Petroleum and APEA. There are professional & trade bodies that do produce reliable & authoritative guidance--why re-invent the wheel as long as the guidance is referred to in HSC ACoPs and other general guidance Some professional and trade bodies are better placed in producing the guidance. For example, during the run up to DSEAR, the HSE also consulted on the LPGA guidance for LPG for the DSEAR changes. As long as adequate consultations does take place with all relevant stakeholders, including HSE, it does not matter that an organisation other than the HSE has published the guidance if that organisation has the expertise.

Posted By Dave Daniel When the HASAWA was introduced in 1975 many industry bodies set out to prepare and propose Codes of Practice for approval. The HSC steadfastly refused to approve any ACOPS which it itself had not written. I have seen comments somewhere in HSE published documents also proposing the abandonment of ACOPS. There are also suggestions that enforcement might be delegated even further.... Interesting to see what HSE inspectors will actually be doing....! Personally I think this is a good thing, after all, there's generally very little real guidance in most HSE guidance documents and ACOPS. Industry standards are be much more specific and pragmatic.