Posted By ARUN
Dear Arun,
Thank you very much for the two of your “quotes” on the IOSH Discussion forum today,i.e.
1)you how you are so much against your own BSC where you have spent so much time of your life?
2)love and worship British Safety Council for their work towards uplifting safety standards
If you care to read my other contributions, many a time, I have gone out of my way to defend the BSC. In the same IOSH forum, I have defended the BSC OHS Diploma, even when it was not accredited by IOSH. Your claim that I am working against BSC is totally unfounded, because even after leaving BSC, I have defended it. Yes, I was employed by BSC, but I have given BSC more than what you think I have got in return! I will discuss this latter.
What I find strange is the “impression” (i.e it is implicit) given by BSC ( or one partially created by yourself) that the SoW is the world’s greatest health and safety award, and it is a measurement of performance of the world’s top 40 safety performing companies which it is not or perhaps you understanding of it. And also somehow it is embraced by a majority of UK companies, which it never has been! Yes, it carried the name ”British” but it is not “official” safety body in UK nor does it have any regulatory or enforcement role anywhere in the UK!
The reason it cannot be is that even in UK, the best/excellent safety performing companies do not participate in its 5 Star Audit system—because they do not necessarily agree with BSC’s claims regarding the value of the BSC 5 Star Audit and SoW, especially now that OHSAS 18001 has been accredited by UKAS and some certification bodies have already gained UKAS accreditation. Many more do not bother to become BSC members because they do not think BSC is what BSC claims to be.
Let us take it point by point:-
1. There is no indication from BSC that what percentage of applicants to the SoW award got it—maybe almost everyone applying for it gets it provided they meet a threshold criterion, if there aren’t adequate numbers of applicants.
2. If BSC was truly international, why is there not a single company from other parts of the world, including other English speaking nations such as USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa? It is inconceivable that there isn’t one that could be in the top 40
3. The country with the best worldwide performance is Sweden—one would expect Swedish based companies such as Ericsson, Volvo to participate –they do not because they do not consider the BSC is what BSC claims to be.
4. If the BSC 5 star Audit system is what it is claimed to be, why has it not been accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), the official UK Accreditation body as OHSAS 18001 now is. For a “standard” to be agreed for UKAS accreditation, it has to be agreed in a Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Government and UKAS. It is not, therefore, even at that level, there is no official recognition/accreditation of the 5 Star Audit Systems, even within UK!
http://www.ukas.com/abou...dum_of_understanding.asp For a complete list of management system certification standards and normative documents covered under UKAS accreditation, refer to:-
http://www.ukas.com/Libr...stem%20Certification.pdf5. Do you know what the generally accepted international standard for certificating bodies is? BSC’s doe not claim that it meets the requirements of ISO/IEC 17021 for its 5 Star Audit Certification.
6. Have you ever asked a question to BSC what level of auditing accreditation their auditor who visits your site has? (not safety qualifications, but auditing qualifications!) There is an International Register of Certified Auditors (IRCA) and various specific requirements for Occupational health and safety auditors. Details of IRCA at:-
http://www.irca.org/cert...ion/certification_9.html7. My personal and professional view is that it is high time that we in India stop looking at “everything foreign as superior”. We do not lack expertise or management skills in India and should not be victims some very clever advertising. What we lack in India could be the overall sense of discipline and sometimes the “chalta hai” attitude.
8. As a person of Indian origin, I am ashamed that you have, in a public IOSH form used the term, “I love and worship British Safety Council for their work towards uplifting safety standards”.
BSC is not doing anything for free, except recently providing free some level 1 exams for its members—and in reality BSC itself is not considered by the UK Government or the UK Health and Safety enforcement body as an centre of health and safety expertise. Yes, BSC delvers training and conducts audits, which in addition to its membership fees remain the main income streams –and training is not free, in fact fairly expensive!
Yes, BSC has a history of being a campaigning organization, but you do not know the detailed history of BSC that well. It was founded by an individual ( James Tye) who had a confrontational style of management and even did not get along with his partner safety organizations’ such as IOSH & ROSPA. In fact once, the Director General of IOSH, John Barrell sued James Tye who was the Director General of BSC for defamation. It is only after the passing away of James Tye in 1997 that significant changes took place under the leadership of Sir Neville Purvis whose background was in the Royal Navy. Until then, BSC, despite having charitable status, in reality hardly met the requirements of the UK Charity Commission guidelines in context of the profits and the assets held by the BSC!. In order to reduce its reserves base, BSC had to procure a training centre in Chiswick, which was later sold when the financial situation became less attractive.
There was so much rivalry between BSC and IOSH that you would not find the top executives of IOSH in the same room as top executives of BSC. It was then that James Tye founded IIRSM, as IOSH did not recognise the BSC Diploma in Occupational Health & Safety as meeting the corporate requirements of IOSH membership, mainly because the entire BSC Diploma Exams were based on Multiple Choice Questions—this continues until 2004/5 when the entire BSC OSH Diploma was overhauled and met the UK ENTO standards.
It appears that IIRSM is not proud of its association with James Tye, and you will not fond a mention of him anywhere on the IIRSM website!
http://www.independent.c...y-james-tye-1330362.htmlThe link below provides another view of what the BSC indulged in during the times of James Tye, fortunately, his successors are much more focused and do not indulge in beauty contests !
http://www.ms-beautiful-eyes.com/history.htmBy the way, more than 50 % of my safety knowledge and competence arises from my Chemical Engineering Degree from LIT, Nagpur, and my stint with GSFC in vadodara, only 50 % from the UK qualifications and experience!
In context of your quote, “how you are so much against your own BSC where you have spent so much time of your life?”—I was with BSC for less than 5 years—that is not by any standards “most of my life”!
Secondly, I have delivered to BSC much more that you think I have. I was the first technically qualified employee of BSC that had an Engineering Degree qualification combined with very high level of Safety Qualification (MSc in Safety Management—which I doubt any BSc Auditor currently has) and was the first employee of BSC who was also an IOSH member and also the first employee with a non-BSC safety qualification. When I took over the running of the BSC Technical information Service in 1998, it had been run previously by non-experts. I streamlined it to provide a very efficent and timely service, with myself as the main technical responder to various inquiries, including from BSC auditors who need to be technical/engineering experts. Yes, BSC did invest in subscribing to Electronic Sorces of Information. There was no other centre or avenue of expert information/knowledege within BSC and in my view, it is unlikely any exists today. To state that BSC is somehow a centre of health and safety excellence is not correct.
To sum up, I have not been and am not against BSC, but it appears that you consider BSC to be much more than it really is. Ultimately, it is your choice which Audit system you want to use and what accolade you seek--the bottom line is the implementation of day to day safety in your plants, especially for the contracting staff yu may be using for turn-arounds, bagging and other manual activities. The motto should be "NOBODY GETS HURT", including contrcators--now, if that can be realised, that is excellence in persnal safety, especilly if you have implemented Behavioural Safety Programme on your site. Process Safety is a more technical subject, but lots can be learnt from the history of chemical disasters.
Best Regards,
Jay Joshi CMIOSH MASSE MIIRSM
BTech(Chem Engg) MSc(Safety Mgt)
Chartered Safety & Health Practitioner