Am I the only one to feel that it isn't really the laws that are the problem but people either misinterpreting them or abusing them for their own purposes. For example, as far as I am aware there is no law stopping school staff applying sun cream on children. In fact, I know of several schools that do just this and I don't think that they are breaking the law. What concerns me is that some good laws will be removed just because through abuse they have become discredited - unfairly. Perhaps this is the point that IOSH should be making to Nick Clegg. Chris

Personally, I'd rather we distanced ourselves from this and avoid falling into the trap already prepared for us. I fear this type of public forum will merely add fuel to the flames and perpetuate the myths. The Forum they've established is asking the public to give opinion on what LAWS* need to be changed. I'm beginning to wonder if the 'man on the Clapham Omnibus' today has sufficient understanding to discriminate between "law", "rules", "made-up rules" and "I couldn't be bothered so I blamed it on elf'n'safety" Check out the link at my recent post "What law is that then?". Nick and David have very kindly set up a public web forum for this nonsense - I think it should be kept away from this one. *Sorry for shouting -no caps or underline here.

Chris P, I agree with you, interpretation and civil judgements or the fear of both is what has brought us to where we are with H&S not any huge burden of laws and bureaucracy. Most people, who rarely use the laws or work with the laws, are usually surprised when they discover the reality of how and what of our leagl system and its laws etc. Personally I welcome such initiatives as this from a government. It will highlight some stuff that will get sorted but perhaps more importantly no-one will be able to say "I told you so, if only they had asked I could have told them how to sort it out" P48

Quite sobering reading some of the comments, to have this level of ignorance in our workplaces. As a profession we seem to be continually providing training on risk assessment, yet so many people fail to grasp the simplicity of it and remain mystified by what they are being asked to do. When the 6 pack were first introduced I remember so many people seemed to get bogged down under piles of paper writing down every possible eventuality. Despite numerous campaigns there still seem to be areas of society that have been unable to shake this image off.

I've got a couple of laws I'd like to see scrapped - I didn't know these existed until I had them quoted at me in the last couple of weeks... 1) The law that says an electrical appliance can't be on top of a metal filing cabinet because of the electric shock risk 2) The law (it may be the same one) that says a printer can't be in the same area as a water cooler because of the danger of water and electricity close together. The fact that the water cooler is itself electrical seems to have been missed... Is it Friday yet?

That'll be the workplace culture that needs a tweak, not the law; unless you mean the 'law unto themselves'

Its often the case that the fear of litigation, civil claims, etc are the undoing of a common sense application of the 'rules' Health and Safety should never be taken as an excuse not to do, but to do it sensibily with mitigation against the risks within the time, costs and effort restraints placed upon industry. What the changes really need are more common sense examples of the application of law rather than the law to change. In changing the law we are also changing the evolution of it. There may be a case of changing the words, i.e, must, shall, should and may to mean a wider application and common sense standards...

I agree with nearly all the comments so far about laws not being the problem. However, I do think they need tidying up a bit. Look at this list on the HSE website: http://www.hse.gov.uk/le...tion/statinstruments.htm Some should probably amalgamated' e.g COSHH amandemnet regs 2003, COSHH amendment regs 2004, COSHH 2002. I'm sure someone will know the answer to this - but I don't understand why they don't just update the entire regs - rather than adding various orders and amendments. It took years for the offices shops and railway premises act to finally die a death as bits of it gradually got replaced. It would have been much neater if the workplace regulations was drafted to replace the whole thing back in 1992.