Posted By Sharon
Its a public forum!

Posted By Liesel
Andrew, I can understand where you are coming from and agree in principle- but I also think it would be difficult to get to work in practise. The bottom line being that there are people out there who could well be "Competent" in the wider sense of the word- but who are not CMIOSH, maybe not even IOSH members. I have, for example, noticed that some sectors of the "hazard/safety" field seem to place far more weight on being CEng than being CMIOSH- there does not as yet seem to be a wholly agreed "H&S competence" judgement across the industry, in spite of IOSH's efforts. So in such situations it could be a bit difficult to judge "competence" without a CV.

There is also the issue of what a public forum is about. Fundamentally a "public forum" is an area where individuals can offer views. A look at any public forum will show how wildly inaccurate these can be on other similar forums with different content. As with all such forums, do not park brain when you log on- rather read with srutiny and use with care!

Maybe a happy medium would be to add a "technical" discussion aspect to the members' area?

Posted By David Bannister
New starters can have wonderful ideas and insights that older practitioners can miss. They can also be incredibly naive. Likewise, old hands have mostly seen it all before but may be blind to innovation.

Long live the open forum.

Posted By Julian Wilkinson
This is a public discussion forum not an IOSH on-line advisory service and as I see it, it should remain that way.

Yes I agree some threads do create two ends of a spectrum, however you make your own conclusions from the advice or comments from it. This is what I like about a public forum such as this and in my view it is sometimes just as important to know how not to do something to gain a better understanding of how to do something.

If it was purely professional advice it no longer remains a discussion forum.

Posted By John Watson
Andrew raises a very interesting point though For example if I have a weooden hut storing TNT and some one commentsd “yes no problem, smoking in there is absoutley fine” Of course they will get shouted down by subsequent posters. However if I have taken that “advice” and don’t log on again, then as far as I see it the advice I had was good and correct.

I know it’s an extreme example but I bet there are many instances of it happening, to a greater or lesser degree, and whose liability is it if it goes belly up?

Regards

John.

Posted By andrew morris
I think some of the early posters misunderstood the point of the tread. and perhaps I am not competant in the design of thread titles, I never claimed to be.

I not suggesting it become a closed forum. The suggestion is to provide info on posters (if they wish to post it, to allow users of this forum, who may be new to qualify advice given.

I never intended to suggest a duty of care - i said moral - joe bloggs comes on here asks whether or not he should do something - as many would, and Mr X with no experience or qual's gives poor advice. Whilst IOSH didn't give or endorse the advice, we need to see it from the joe bloggs point of view - they came to the IOSH website, got advice and then killed someone.

Its nothing to do with conkers or censorship, its to do with openness and transparency.

Posted By Edward Shyer
Andrew,

You stated

IOSH owes a duty (moral or otherwise)

what do you mean by otherwise?.

While you rightly say anyone can come on this forum and receive advice either correct or off the mark. What needs to be remembered is that using the same scenario of someone believing the advice given and following that advice it results in a death. Then who would be at fault the person giving the advice or the person following that advice that resulted in the death.

The management regulations state that an employer needs to appoint one or more competent persons to assist him with his undertakings. So by solely accepting the advice given on these pages would not fulfil that duty.

Likewise if the person receiving the advice is a person appointed as the competent person and that person follows incorrect advice which results in the death then the Employer again has failed in his duty as it would be argued that the competent person was in fact not competent. (but you know that already being an eho)

With regards the forum itself I believe that it should remain in its present form. If anyone in a position to make changes to anything then it should be with the legislators who allow just anyone to set themselves up as H&S consultants with no qualifications and very little experience. Once the industry is regulated then we may see more professional advice being given out.

Regards

Ted (could be CMIOSH)

Still not conkers bonkers.

Posted By Pete48
Why am I not surprised that this thread has gone straight into the "we want to stay anonymous"; "it will make it elitist"; " letters don't make you competent" arguments.
They totally miss the point IMHO.

Yes this is a public forum but equally as important it is the only forum provided by IOSH where members can try to seek and exchange views and opinions of fellow members on matters other than IOSH "internal" business. Being able to recognise fellow members can be useful sometimes.

It is also a public face of IOSH and any comments posted here are taken as being representative of IOSH or at least the "safety brigade" despite any disclaimers to the contrary. It would help if others could see who are the "safety brigade" and who are not.

Therefore, it seems sensible to me that some information about each poster would help in giving a context to any response.(n.b. context NOT validation) That in no way demeans or prevents any response by all and sundry, it just makes life a little clearer.
If anyone out there can tell me that they never consider context then I might be tempted to switch camps on this.

Posted By Edward Shyer
Pete48

I agree with your opening comments but unfortunately we cannot change human nature to the extent of reasons for your observation. This is probably one of the reasons why the attempt to introduce a workable safety culture in the workplace is so difficult. Especially when you look at other threads and the comments that follow where certain professionals are suddenly embroiled in differences of opinion and sign off to include post nominals.

Yes this is the public face of IOSH but at the moment there is no member’s forum where members can try to seek and exchange views and opinions of fellow members on matters other than IOSH "internal" business. But is this not for IOSH to sort out and nothing to do with response on public forums.

With regards to the suggestion to providing information from each poster when providing a response I cannot see the purpose of this making the response more valid.

Someone mentioned explosives in an earlier comment so my response for example could be:
Don’t worry the TNT (TNT decomposes as follows:2 C7H5N3O6 ? 3 N2 + 5 H2O + 7 CO + 7 C )(it is also subject to exothermic reactions) but it is in a wooden shed and it is under lock and key and because of this you can smoke within the vicinity as there is no problem because I have a NEBOSH diploma and I am a chartered member of IOSH you are not going to have a problem.
Or
I am a shot blaster and I keep all my explosives in a metal container which is strictly controlled by signing in and signing out procedures. In addition the metal container is within a wooden shed that is also under lock and key with restricted access to the extent that it needs two keys to open the outer door to gain access to the container. We do not mind people smoking outside because we have adequate controls in place to prevent the TNT coming into contact with any of our explosive substances.

Who would you take notice of ? just trying to change context

As I mentioned earlier until the H&S profession grabs the bull by the horns and strictly regulates the industry you are going have problems with the shysters out there.

Regards
Ted (don’t even know what I could be now)
But hopefully still not conkers bonkers.

This comment and any information sent with it are intended only for information only. If you are not happy or do not agree this information then please disregard the contents of this thread immediately. (does this cover litigation.)

Posted By Adrian Watson
Dear all,

I normally avoid this type of thread like the plague as they tend to polarise to very extreme views.

I use post nominals rarely except when I feel that they are needed to allow the reader to identify the source of he evidence. When reading most posts the absence of post nominals or references does not bother me, but they are helpful.

I am not elitist, I have learnt much more from workers than managers, but after 30 years in the game I know that I need to know the source to put it in context to weigh the evidence. In those cases I want to know who the poster is, their knowledge base (post nominals, and not only H&S nominals) and experience. I also want to know references.

Regards Adrian



Therefore I

Posted By GARRY WIZZ
It would make not a jots worth of difference to me if the authors credentials appeared as part of the information exchange.

I operate in the main within east midlands as a service provider to numerous firms large and small.

It is my experience, the large firms employ teams of H&S people with qualifications up to the yin yang.

When we as contractors come on site the practical application of H&S is in most cases very poor. So I have concluded that within the field of H&S having letters after your name is indicative of factual knowledge gained to pass an exam but does not indicate any ability to apply said knowledge in a practical situation.

As a point, I do attend at one large national company and their H&S is reasonable, practical and very effective and impressive, but this is not the norm

From this experience I have concluded that this is a great forum but it is implicit that when I garn some knowledge from here I MUST PROOF TEST IT BEFORE USING IT.

Yesterday I was told by a person who had just completed the NEBOSH Construction, you must always wear a harness in a boom lift.?????

So I conclude, system not broken, don't fix it,
buyer beware, let fools suffer

Garry
Posted with a smile
Not meant to offend the prickly ones

Posted By J Knight
Hi Folks,

I don't use my postnominals on this site, but I do often make reference to my experience and will state why I feel I have some grounds for an opinion. I tend to trust posters who do this themselves.

I think there's a healthy element of self-censorship working here; people don't tend to post responses in areas where they have no competence, so I don't post about e.g. lathes, engineers don't tend to post about fire safety in Residential care premises. Over time you get to know who is who and who will have a worthwhile opinion.

On the other hand, I can't agree that qualifications are worthless; I think that's a short-sighted attitude, and one which would probably only ever exist in the UK. Qualifications are important, and with the need for CPD, Chartered status is especially so.

And Garry, you may see employers with qualified people and abysmal H&S performance, I'm sure that happens, but how much of that is down to the safety bod and how much is down to entrenched organisational culture? We can only be effective if the board supports us; if they're employing us as window dressing we have no chance.

So on balance, as this is an open forum I don't think we need to use our letters, but I wouldn't object to an accessible profile giving details of experience as well as qualifications,

John MRSPB