Posted By Steven John Nelson As a H&S Advisor I am often involved in the investigation of incidents &/or illhealth in the workplace, resulting in written reports with conclusions & recomendations. I am keen on causal analaysis, and use the approach promoted by HSG 245 to identify underlying management failures and thereby potential improvements to our risk control systems. My incident reports tend to focus on these issues, but I do also like to comment on compliance &/or liability issues, concluding that we had AFARP complied with our legal duties, or maybe had not. I do like to refer to relevant legal &/or management standards and discuss whether we were compliant. However, this is where my problems seem to start. The managers in my business who liase with our insurers never want any discussion of legal standards, compliance &/or liability in my reports, as it is disclosable to injured parties or their preresentatives, and it may thereby compromise their attempts to defend any civil claim for damages resulting from our potential neglience &/or breach of statutory duty. Is there any guidance out there about how to deal with compliance &/or liability issues in incident investigation reports, possibly from insurance companies. Hope someone can help.

Posted By Steven John Nelson I posted this query again today, minus the spelling mistakes, in the hope that I could elicit some more responses &/or help. I will be acting upon you very good advice of yesterday. Thanks again Helen.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Steven You write indicating that you want 'to identify underlying management failures and thereby potential improvements to our risk control systems'.and you ask 'Is there any guidance out there about how to deal with compliance &/or liability issues in incident investigation reports?' May I suggest that you may more readily achieve your own balance of objectives by enlarging your frame of analysis with a view to educating and persuading your managerial clients, than by pursuing a power struggle that may simply be beyond your role to win in the short run? You can enlarge your frame of analysis with a view to educating and persuading your managerial clients by introducing ergonomic and/or behavioural safety frameworks. They offer the advantage of highlighting the positive impact you may achieve and change the basis of evaluation to one much larger than legal compliance. When done well, this commonly leads to mature evaluation of quality safety management.

Posted By Dave Wilson Any investigation should be a statement of fact surrounding the incident with recommendations for improvement etc, should not apportion blame and definately NOT and a big NOT whether you feel you have complied with statute etc. This is a matter for the courts and if you identify a failure and put it in writing as a breach etc I feel your Insurance compoany will not be best pleased! After all they are the ones who with your factual report decide on whether or not liability rests with them. Remember you are there as an employee of the company to safe guard the employees AND the company as well. NO blame culture just recognising safety lapses and learning from them.

Posted By Ian Waldram IOSH Technical Committee has been working for some time to produce guidance on investigating more serious accidents, including fatalities. This response takes account of our discussions and several drafts which have to date been reviewed internally (but before too long we should be ready for a wider review by others who have particular expertise in this area - probably using the member forum). Your approach to investigation seems absolutely correct, though I would hope that most investigations are in fact led by a line person with yourself advising them. If not, possibly that's why some of the disagreement arises? However, reports should in general not include personal opinions of the investigators, except to weigh up contradictary or incomplete evidence - in which case they are probably in the best position to make those judgements, certainly better then those who come along later and know only what is in the report itself (unless there is additional evidence at that time). There is nothing wrong in you writing separately with your opinions about liability, and cross-referring to the report. However the internal investigation report itself should be about how to prevent recurrence, not to decide who should be liable if any legal procedings result. Of course a report by someone employed to recommend about liability issues (an insurance surveyor, a regulator) will cover these issues - but then their reports aren't shared with other stakeholders such as employees, supply chain (if involved), etc. who may become party to future legal proceedings.