Hi All Would you say this is the view of the majority or the minority of the general public? Should we challenge this notion or say nothing and actually prove this notion to the contrary. I have been in H&S now for a decade and I am seeing and hearing this notion both in the media and in the workplace more and more frequently. I am begining to wonder is there a high number of professionals who are being over zealous such as the well documented conkers scenario. Of course I imagine we would all like to believe we do not fall into that category. I have been attending Project Team meetings over the last number of months, in my capacity as a SHEQ Manager for the Principal Contractor. The CDM-C has confirmed he is content with the standard of the Construction Phase Plan and the practices he has noted thus far. However on a regular basis he brings different ACoPs (full versions) to meetings and hands out copies to everyone. It has become a running joke amongst most of the team but it has become an embarrassment to me as a professional. In my view we are supposed to have the knowledge to assist and workplaces under our control are compliant with current legislative requirements using a common sense approach- not by quoting legislation. Today I read an article on this website about Terry Wogan saying instead of throwing a Guy F on top of the bonfire we should throw a H&S prof- and someone has responded quoting accident/mortaility figures. Now I may not agree with Mr Wogan in his remark but I am wondering are we stoking the media fires and a general view by actually responding continually to these flippant remarks made by various media vehicles and making life worse for ourselves rather than ensuring that we continue to improve on current stats and workplace attitudes. # I would be interested in hearing the view from this forum. Am I loosing my mind- perhaps!!lol Lee

My collegues constantly rib me for being an anorak and I play to it, it adds a bit of fun to the working day. As well as helping to maintain a good working relationship it also works to my advantage. When I 'take my anorak off' they know and trust me enough to take my word on a subject and get things done. I have a remarkable ability to be able to recall (and in a lot of cases recite) a lot of the H&S legislation that relates to our business (OMG I am an Anorak!). They laugh and they rib me but they always rely on me for the answer. Having been with the same company for a relatively long time (top ten longest servers in a head count of 3.5k) I am also used as a historical database and have saved the company tens if not hundreds of thousands in informing them of historical mistakes that they may be about to repeat (not just H&S ones). In short, they laugh at my anorak but they appreciate it, trust and use it! Unfortunatley there are people who take life too seriously and they do us no good at all! As for the media. I can't speak about all of them because that would be hypocritical but there are many cases of them attacking anything they can pin a badge on (History repeating). H&S profs, 4x4 drivers, white van man...politicians! If it can be readily identified and pigeon holed it would appear it is fair game for press prejudice which the masses swallow up without question! I suppose we should be thankful we are spread out all over the country 'cause if we all lived in one community it would (ironically) probably be the unsafest place in Britain! I'd better get off of my soapbox now before I breach the work at height regs. I'm now going to don my anorak and go out and look down my nose with derision at BMW drivers! ;-)

Although, anyone on this forum at this time on a Sunday afternoon may fairly be said to be exhibiting anorakish tendencies!

As a practicing CDM C I often come across projects where the contractors debate why they are asked for specific things to be provided, welfare facilities are a case in point. So it is useful to have access to ACOPs and HSE guidance to illustrate points. If you are troubled by what the CDM C is doing then why not ask him?

Brett Where did you get all the ACOS from ? Dec

I occasionally come across these types who normally are either academic with no real experience or uncouth individuals who wouldnt normally be managerial material were they not in HS.

So if your colleagues are afraid of anaraks are they suffering from anoraknophobia?

For info - some time ago I posted a similar thread about whether some professionals were taking H&S too far by trying to emiminate all risk instead of just managing it to a sensible level. There was mixed response. Anorak - well could anyone who is an 'expert' in their field considered an anorak?? I try not to quote legislation. Had to do it as an inspector in a previous life and saw people's eyes glaze over and now I try really hard not to, unless I am asked specifically. To me, people just want to know what they've got to do and they switch off as soon as you start mentioning Regulations. They employ me as a competent person and so, hopefully, trust my advice, without me having to prove it through quoting legislation at them all the time (I'm a consultant though). I have the opinion that people that feel the need to quote legislation are just trying to prove themselves to be all knowing and better than everyone else. I don't have a desperate need to do that Personally I think giving out copies of ACOP's to be very lazy. They are good reference material for specific groups of people but not for the masses. Expecting others to plow through them is ineffective to my mind. Should we stop behaving so much like anoraks - well that's open to personal opinion. The TV documentary (and remember garden is an anagram for danger!) proved that we all have very different views on how bad that anorak portrayal was for our image as a profession. Me, I just want to help people understand and I don't think sounding like an anorak does that. Seeing me as a real person who can put things in everyday terms is what gets me success. Only the other week one of my clients thanked me enormously for a training session becuase everyone had remained focused, attentive and interested throughout. I was really pleased with that. Keep it real!! BJA, Can I point out that there are quite a few of us that use this forum that have already expressed how fed up we are with the constant example of academics without experience. There are plenty of us academics with experience too. H&S professionals are stereotyped enough by the rest of society without steretyping from within as well.

Ok so i'm feeling ever so slightly mischievous tonight. Can somebody please tell me where I can get one of these anoraks with 'Health and Safety Professional' written across the back. Not in the Arco catalogue.

A saying taught to me in my early days doing H&S, if you have to start quoting regulations you have already lost your argument. Over the years I have found this to be completely true. As for the anorak thing you are what you are if that is how you are percieved then either be happy with it or change you outlook. I recently saw a job description for a H&S job and one of the primary attritubes the individual needed was personal courage and a lot of it. Experience may be one thing but being able to back it up is another. kevin

Kieran, if I did not know you better I would say from your last post that you have been on the drink. With respect, it is better to keep things simple (Kis) sometimes. Ray

Thanks for the responses. My view is as simple as this, by merely having a copy of ACoPs distributed at a meeting is not an adequate method of ensuring suitable communication, whatever happened to having a full and frank discussion about the issues in hand. I would not expect a HSE/SHEQ/Envt Manager to throw ACoPs continually at a workforce when they are having meetings with them and the same applies to the CDM-C in question. The reason I do not raise it with the CDM-C in question is that I apply my methods of communication when I convert the principles of theory into practice. I feel that by distributing ACoPs regularly at meetings does nothing to raise the profile of H&S as a subject or us as H&S Professional with others- we need to be able to put information across in a more informative fashion. Lee