Posted By Ray Hurst
Perceptions, views and opinions everyone has one. Personally I think Malcolm’s posting yesterday said it all.
In my view IOSH and HSE was absolutely right to become involved in this project from the outset, risky though it might seem to some based on hindsight (a very precise science I might add). Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect a more robust and positive portrayal of the profession but this is the “entertainment” industry not a company making OH&S safety training videos. The original title by the way was to be “Slips. Trips and Safety Tips” changed by Channel 4 to “The Fun Police”.
Of course the media team at the grange has, as indicated by Ruth, already responded, as it always has in an attempt to balance the stories that appear.
IMHO IOSH did not come out of it badly (although other posters clearly disagree as is their right) and in fact was only mentioned when it came to the world conker championships and perhaps the expectations of some (me included) would have hoped for a far more positive approach to the profession as a whole. But hey, if we are unhappy about how we are portrayed in the mass media (as I am and have tried to counter over the last 12 months) do we just continue to ignore it and fume away or take a calculated risk with programme makers who want to do something and help and co-operate wherever we can and get as much of the message across as we can realistically or “so far as is reasonably practicable” achieve.
What would have been worse in my view was to have a programme about OS&H aired without any opportunity to balance the argument and to have to rely on a programme maker’s standard statement “we asked the professional body to take part and comment - but they declined.” What would that say about us as professionals?
I seem to recall similar debates within the CIEH when “Life of Grime” was first aired, some were for and some against some thought it a negative portrayal and others took a more positive view.
The Times ran a piece on Thursday on the lead up to the programme and they said: “The health and safety industry in the UK is often ridiculed in the media, with indignant opinion pieces deploring the rise of the nanny state and defending the rights of children to fall out of trees. But this wry, gently teasing documentary meets the much-maligned people who dedicate their lives to the safety of others. The joy of the film is a chance to meet these extraordinary characters. Health and safety workers are industrious, dedicated and totally sincere. One of them talks about his anger at “the waste of human life”. But at the same time there is a level of eccentricity that is simply off the scale”.
Britain has always celebrated and loved its eccentrics and there are some of those in every profession (and they generally make for good TV) and don’t we always love to see them (except it seems when it is our own profession under fire of course.)
As to some earlier postings in the week I have to say that I would now have to agree that, yes, it would seem as if some of the best bits (at least as far as we were concerned) were left on the cutting room floor (although since having made this programme maybe they will have swept them up by now and put them in the bin so as to eliminate the potential for a slip/trip accident in the studio). Certainly a whole segment dedicated to the presentation of a Workplace Hazards Awareness Course to a group of year 10 pupils in a school was dropped in its entirety.
The Times have subsequently reviewed the programme and said (among other things) “the makers held a whimsical and beautifully filmed mirror up to our prejudices about health and safety inspectors and their busybody image”.
I think the final segments were quite telling and positive, again this is picked up by The Times who say “….and felt passionately, despite the tabloid headlines accusing his profession of crazy rule-making, that health and safety was very much for the public good. His father had suffered burns as a foundry worker and had inhaled gas when working in a factory. It was a time, Ed said, when workers were exploited through their ignorance. One of the inspectors said he gets angrier and angrier at the “absolute waste of human life” presided over by lazy companies. His job meant he was an “expert in human misery”. There would never be a recession in “health and safety” — sadly”
As someone who has shared a similar experience to Ed, in that my father lost both his legs as a result of a workplace accident I have a passion to ensure good top quality OH&S advice is available and that the dafter decisions are eradicated or at least minimised and that they are not made by OH&S professionals.
There was some debate on another related thread (locked temporarily by the moderators) about OS&H decisions made by local authorities, having been a safety adviser in a large County Council, a district and in London Boroughs and employed in the public sector for 41 years. I have to agree a lot, but not all of the “daft” stories that lead to another rant from Littlejohn et al do originate within the public sector but in my experience very few have originated from a dedicated professional OH&S adviser. More often than not they come from local managers who don’t check it out first.
I sometimes feel as if I get a double “whammy” criticised by the media for being an ‘elf and safety Nazi and by my own professional colleagues for being a safety adviser in a local authority, because from some of the views expressed in that now temporarily locked thread we clearly can’t be competent – but perhaps that’s just my paranoia showing through.
I have no doubt the HSE will also be making some comment on this programme and overall I feel that Frank came across well, his (at least to me) ironic comment about people dropping like flies because of hanging baskets was clearly taken out of context and probably graphically illustrates advice given by our media team “there is no such thing as a closed mike or an off the record comment”.
In my opinion (and I am sure there are many who may well take the time to disagree with me) we need to continue to take every opportunity to put our case as a profession be that through continuing press rebuttals or by facilitating and taking part in programmes like this when offered the opportunity.
I am disappointed in some of the views expressed about this programme in the various threads (and not simply because I was in it for about 30 seconds) although I agree that they need to be aired fully and discussed if that is how people feel.
Yes, perhaps the programme didn’t give us all what we would have liked but this isn’t a perfect world. However, was it not telling when the discussion with Frank took place about having to go and talk to a wife and daughter about how their husband/father had been killed, was not the passion felt and expressed about the outrageous comments made by some in the media where we are described as ‘elf and safety Nazi’s/stasi etc, that anger that most of us feel when we read them. Did we not feel for Pauline as she received abuse when carrying out her enforcement role? Did we not all roll our eyes when we saw the appalling state of the garage (surely that was a made up name he gave).
Comment was made in an earlier posting (temporarily locked) in another thread about “….practitioners who work in real companies trying to manage real risks and help their organisations turn a profit”. Maybe the programme makers didn’t feel that it was worth filming the day to day activities of practitioners who only interact within their own organisations. Were not the small window factory/garage/nail shop/boat builders “real companies” then, also trying to turn a profit?
Was that contributor also saying that activities illustrated in the programme were not “real” risks or were trivial? What about the badly guarded spindle moulder and the router, the poor standards in the garage, moving traffic on a site with pedestrians, (I would hazard a guess from the comment made by Ed when the security guard made an appearance that this segment was set up by the film crew and was not part of an official visit as part of his consultancy role to look at potential pedestrian/vehicle conflict). There was also explosive dusts, noise, HAVS, (I too felt they could have done more with the HSL) a banned nail adhesive (at least in the US) with the potential for causing damage, manual handling issues (and let’s face it how many of us have had an audience just like that depicted when doing a tool box talk, just this time they could play to the camera. There but for the grace of God, I say.
Perhaps the approach used to illustrate slips/trips, sharp objects e.g. using the home environment isn’t one that you or I might use but how many accidents occur in the home every year (I know that’s someone else’s job) but with a little more explanation this could perhaps have been transposed into how it all applies equally in the work environment.
The point made by Ed about lack of a “safety culture” made towards the end of the programme was quite clearly illustrated by the attitude of the manager of the window factory who said “...obviously we don’t want to do it (H&S) but it’s part and parcel of everyday work. Everybody is trying to cover everyone’s a**e, (sorry moderators but a direct quote from the programme) basically this is what it is all about.” That attitude is going to permeate right from the top through the small workforce and therefore in my view Ed was onto a loser before he even started and in just 15 minutes he was really going to have to struggle to get them to come on board.
I am certain there are those out there who are going to pick over this response word by word to find out, and point out where I have got it wrong, but I would ask you to remember that like you I too have an opinion which is as valid as yours even though it may not be the same. So to summarise I think that if you look at the programme again in further detail, much like a Monty Python Sketch if you drill down you will find more layers which do make for a positive message, it all depends on your frame of mind when you receive that message and whether it met your expectations or prejudices.
So glass half full or half empty? Personally I go for the half full.
Ray Hurst
Immediate Past President
.