Posted By Merv Newman Bill, not entirely sure I agree with you. If with actual number of fatalities is roughly stable, and the rate has dropped from 3.48 to 3.0 due to increasing workforce this would indicate that (without getting the calculator out) the industry has absorbed about 15% extra workers for a O.15 increase in absolute fatality numbers. On the face of it this looks like an improving situation. If the RATE had remained stable an extra 15% of fatalaties, 10 or more additional deaths, would have occurred. Please don't niggle me on decimal points. I've just had lunch.

Posted By steven bentham Massaging the figures? Why not all the best at 'spin' do it. Trouble is one big xxxx up plays havoc with the stats; still its handy to put that down to a rise in employment or a rise in migrant workers or the decline in HSE Inspectors. Try look at the fatal accident rates v employment over 10 years or 20 years. One year is hardly enough data [although any one fatal accident is more than enough!] It reminds me of an old interview question: How can a company reduce its accident rates by any statistical measure??? [Get the Safety Adviser a bigger car}

Posted By steven bentham I thought the advertisements showed that the best organisations in our magazine, pay their safety advisers the most money and in turn have the best cars. The message is clear, if you are poor at safety and want to get better get a well paid safety adviser! Statistically the organisations with the worst safety record, pay little regard to having a safety adviser (and probably have an old banger as a car). Only Joking. So like Bill said is it correct to massage the figures? I agree fully with Bill if the number of deaths go up, we have not done as well it's a con to use statistics to massage the facts and say we have done better.

Posted By Andy Petrie if you look at it the other way, they could reduce the number by employing less staff. but the rate could be higher. There would be less fatalities overall, but as a percentage of the workforce it would be higher. I think the HSE have it right

Posted By Jim Walker OK, even if HSE is statistically correct............... Remember " revitalising", big Prescott idea how H&S at work was going to massively improve under Labour? HSE has consistently missed their own targets and now instead of knucking down to some work, have taken a leaf from their "master's" books and are wasting time and money on spin; while people continue to die at work.

Posted By peter gotch I do wish that HSE would bite the bullet and stop using the number of fatals as their headline indicator, attempting to define year on year trends, and pretending that these might be statistically significant. Whilst the number of deaths is obviously too many, the number is small in terms of statistical analysis. Statistical analysis showing a trend over 10 or 20 years - yes. From one year to the next - no! Regards, Peter

Posted By Bill Fisher One point that also sticks in my mind was a response I received from an HS Commissioner at the first HSC Open Meeting in London in 2000(1). They were launching the HSC's response and Action Plan to the 'Revitalising' Strategy. I asked how they could justify the % reduction in fatals by 2010 given that (and this is from a poor memory) they were accepting seventy deaths. The 'Lady' Commissioner immediately pointed out that figures were not important but the actions. I responded that it was HSC's own figures that were being quoted. At this point the Chair took over and neatly steered the discussion on to another point. And of course we had the Summit - It would not have been out of place at the Palladium. Don't get me wrong I do believe that individuals are keen and indeed appalled that a solution cannot be found and sustained. Let me be forthright and suggest that those groups with the ability to help effect change are more interested in spin than accepting the industry has real problems and as yet the answer has not been found - nor sustained! Have I got it wrong? Bill

Posted By Robert K Lewis Bill I've experienced exactly the same brush off myself when questioning Area Directors and Commissioners. Stating actions is cheap and easy but as you say the problem still exists. It is at this point I ask myself if we have actually analysed the problem correctly? On the basis of current thinking we seem unable to make significant changes to the figures, hence the safety of persons, therefore our approach must somehow be deficient. Doubtless many will thus call for ever stiffer penalties but there is no actual evidence that this succeeds. We need to attack in some manner the whole governanace structures of companies to achieve an environment where risks health and safety are managed as effectively as other business risks. The whole debate about trends on a year by year basis is, as Peter starts to identify, a sterile chase in a meaningless way to provide a good headline. When the HSE measures its performance by the trends in their assistance of business we could accept these as smart targets for their activity. Bob

Posted By Robert K Lewis Mark Yes businesses do go to the wall but I still am convinced that it is good corporate governance that is the ultimate solution. It is not however the total panacea for all ills. There needs to be a deeper shift taking place. Most businesses fail I think because the financial risk assessment failed in some way. Look at the Red Letter Days collapse this week, even the entrepreneurs do get it wrong but fundamentally because they felt the profit gain matched the risk. We do need a bit more risk aversion for safety but the real debate ought perhaps happen at next conference. Perhaps we ought to get a debate workshop operating? Bob

Posted By Charles Lanning I have entered this debate albeit rather late … Safety is easy – it is so simple – just do not injure people. It is not so much as massaging the figurers as we are debating but rather we should be messaging our systems, were they have failed. Trends are indicators and early warning alarm bells that something is wrong. We all know that fatalities are not fated, accidents don’t just happen, illness is not random … they are all caused. One fatality is too much - a life is gone. I tend to agree with the HSE reporting as a measurement of safety performance. Comparing with the previous year is a benchmark, to make us realise that something is wrong or maybe better. As some of you have already suggested whether you have a preference to a particular model viz, Swiss cheese model of accidents etc etc then so be it, but after you have highlighted your model view then the real process begins i.e. to gather all the relevant facts in determining the failure. Thomas Edison once said, if there’s a better way to do it, find it. In reality, we know that working is often dangerous and some work is more dangerous than others so making the workplace safer and healthy is in the interests of all workers, employers and governments, as well as the public at large. Successful prevention requires scientific knowledge of the sources, mechanisms of working systems and the magnitude of problems that could occur, together with the best technical knowledge and practical skill. So, until a system that is the cause of a particular failure can be identified how then can management possible do its job? Corporate governance has its roots in sustainability, accountability and executive management. So whether you have safety risks, health risks, environmental risk, they all bear a financial cost of failure, should something go wrong. John F Welch Jr., said, “If the rate of change inside an organisation is less than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight.” So let’s rather standardise to a system of OHSAS 18000, audit it, have it certified and then benchmark. Let’s become effective and efficient.