Posted By Helen Edginton Good morning all To cut a long story short I need to convince a senior director of the 'importance' of h&s. To get their attention I need to talk £ and commerciality. Any input appreciated. Thanks

Posted By peter gotch Hi Helen. Have you looked at HSE's "The Costs of Accidents at Work"? Various studies have indicated a correlation between those companies which are most successful and those which best manage H&S. Regards, Peter

Posted By Phil Grace Helen, Sources mentioned so far are good - they'll introduce you to iceberg theory/model. But...Non-compliance with what? Not complying with legislation may not result in an accident but could lead to fines. Recent example of HSE prosecuting builder for breaches of Work at Height Regs with no accident. Not practicing risk management could lead to accidents - but all studies to date show that costs to the business far outweigh the costs of insurance. Do not fall into trap of using compensation costs in your arguments. Awards of hundreds of thousands of £s have little or no effect on your insurance premiums. Firm will have to bear all the uninsured costs of meetings and investigations, fines (see above), overtiem to cover absent employees, modifying machinery or work practices, re-training etc etc. Phil

Posted By Chris Packham Helen Last year one company was prosecuted for not having adequately controlled risks from exposure to photographic chemicals. Three cases of contact dermatitis and an inadequate risk assessment and management system (i.e. non compliance with COSHH) resulted in a fine of £100,000 plus £30,000 costs. Chris

Posted By Pete48 Not sure any of the "go to jail" or "safety costs" or "moral duty" ever really work. Uisng numbers and costs is also fraught woth danger, Remember, lies, damned lies and statistics is an easy argument for anyone against. I have certainly not had much lasting success with them over the years when dealing with those who do not want to see H&S in their briefcase. All too easy to rubbish it as scaremongering, nanny state, managing failure or irrelevant costs as they will not hit my department or project directly. I had best success with the corporate responsibility approach. Successful companies are successful because they manage thoroughly and recognise, adopt and adapt best practice across the key areas of control. There is now more than enough evidence available, whether you call it governance or corporate responsibility, to show that H&S is of equal importance and is mutually supportive of the other more traditional management controls. Senior managers and Directors are generally driven by "improvement and success" and can relate to that principle better than technical H&S stuff (comment limited to early days of change) The point about references such as those on the HSE website is that these are hard nosed commercial people saying that integrating H&S has improved their business; note, not H&S anoraks dishing out "failure results" but commercially driven people saying you make more money if you get it right. Now where would you like to start? How about here?" http://www.hse.gov.uk/bu...ssbenefits/casestudy.htm

Posted By Raymond Rapp Pete et al I am not convinced with this argument that 'good safety makes good business sense'. There is no denying accidents do cost money. However, many business minded people can only see as far as the bottom line. That means they consider present expenditure far more important than future costs. Even many good performing companies have 'pockets of resistance', I am sure we have all come across the manager who does not give a stuff for health and safety. Worse still, are those who pay 'lip service' to it. All these types of people have one thing in common - an interest in their own self-preservation. Call me a cynic if you wish.