In my view is that in all cases its the employer of the consultant and/or the in-house person who should carry any blame for poor decisions [as they certainly take the benefits!] as they do in all other areas e.g. finance etc and things should rest there and there alone Irrespective of how competent a H&S professional is if the client wants to go another way they will and most importantly; most people do not want to make a decision nor go to any effort so they hide behind/blame 'others' and H&S is the flavour of the month [or is it the century!] And if anybody has experience of working self employed I feel confident that they would say that their advice etc must be logical, well balanced and uses common sense because clients would quickly get rid of them if things were otherwise so in my view this purge on consultants is not fully justified and is a smoke screen for other things Thoughts please