Posted By Jonathan Sandler Would it be possible to remove the term 'Method Statement' from ever day use and use, as there is no legal requirement, and replace it with 'Safe System of Work'? legal requirement.

Posted By Stuart Nagle Jonathan As a 'Method Statement' is part of 'Safe System of Work' (along with risk assessments and their respective control measures and permits to work etc) I think there should be more emphasis on what is contained within a SSW, what exactly it is (and is designed to do) and how it is designed to be used and employed in the work. All too often, particularly with smaller contractors, the 'Risk Assessment' is not (if at all!), the 'Method Statement' is not (if at all!)and the 'Safe System of Work' often turns out to be few lines of text that resembles a 'Method Statement' but is usually far below what would normally be an acceptable standard of such. I believe this represents several issues, namely; 1) No competent health and safety assistance (although many small contractors appear to have health and safety 'consultants' !!) 2) A thorough lack of understanding of the SSW its purpose and requirements 3) A willingness by employing companies to continue to; a) accept shoddy health and safety procedures from SME's - particularly contractors b) provide the health and safety assistance to the SME themselves at their own company's cost (and unwittingly accepting liability for performance) c) Turn a blind eye to the SME - particularly contractors, being under the impression that it is the contractors responsibility to ensure health and safety on the works, as they have i) handed over an area to the contractor that is on their site, or ii) the works are not part of their core business and are peripheral to what the company are focused on (e.g. production). Until someone grabs this by the horns and turns it around, by company's refusing to employ contractors who don't or will not supply a suitable and suffcient SSW, educates contractors to accept that company's will not accept the risk for their failures, only employs 'competent' contractors (as surely competence today must include being aware of and being able to implement suitable and suffcient health and safety procedures - after all they have been around long enough), things will not change. The reason that so many of these 'contractors' still exist is evidence of our employers and our own inability to implement what the law states is required and is often the result of a negative attitude by company management where cost and the local availablity of small contractors (and looking in the other direction when passing the site of works) are the only criterion. Stuart

Posted By Jonathan Sandler Dear All, I thank you for your comments on this subject. Having only been in the safety business 10 years, I am finding it hard to belive that even in this day and age company's can not get the basic's right. Different industries have different railway have their safety case, atomic/nuclia industry have theirs, both approaches to a SSW, this follows as part of the BSS forum. My question is this; 'Is a SSW more cost effective than a method statement?' if the answer is YES then why are industries scared of using the SSW approach, would this not lead to lower accident's/incidents? Should we as safety advisors promote the SSW rather than the method statement. With the up coming changes to the CDM Regs, would this be a great opportunity for both the Co-ordindator and the Client to look forward and start promoting the SSW? Regards. Jonathan Sandler