Presumably the barrier is to prevent a potential conflict arising from urinating dogs during the task..........

Not really fair to criticise the Company. After all, they will have safety officers/advisers/whatever who should take responsibility for this.

As Roly says, it brings the profession into disrepute, so blame the professionals!

Who are they? What are they doing? Are they fulfilling the competence appropriate for their possible IOSH qualifications and chartered status?

Should IOSH investigate? Probably yes if it is to maintain the credibility it would wish for itself, and to maintain the integrity of its membership.

This is exactly what a professional standards committee is for. IOSH has one. Does it really act - only time I raised an issue of gross incompetence of an IOSH member it wriggled hard to a avoid the issue completely!

Better luck this time. Whoever is dreaming up and/or condoning this sort of safety nonsense is doing you no favours.

Bob, I must disagree with you - this so typical of OTT health and safety. Why is the guy wearing a hard hat - to protet him from pigeon poo! It is difficult to establish the exact height of the bulb, but within the scope of a step ladder I'm sure. Meanwhile, parking on double lines and forcing pedestrians into the road. How safe is that!?

Whether this sort of issue is the fault of an individual health and safety practitioner or not it is difficult to say without more information. However, too many health and safety policies are determined in the boardroom with little thought to those who have to implement those policies and the residual impact. Not unlike the case below:

http://www.shponline.co....ncerns-over-glove-policy

Disciplinary hearings for the safety team? Giving H&S a bad name? Over the top? Well that just about proves the point for the Daily Mail then if even some members of IOSH agree.
What I see in the picture is an operational team whom it may be argued have applied some "work at height in a public place" procedures when a more circumspect approach may have been both sufficient and more efficient. I can’t see how anyone can say anymore or less than that. I certainly wouldn’t.
I have no idea whether it has been assessed or not and no idea as to how suitable and sufficient that assessment may be. I also have no idea whether the crew are following procedure or have just set it out themselves as best they can. For example, I have no idea whether this team are practised in this type of low level replacement or are normally on higher risk tasks and were diverted onto this job for whatever reason. I think that it is a recognised response that skilled and experienced operators who habitually work in high risk disciplines will often still follow those disciplines when not really required for lower risk tasks? Working around electrical systems generally requires a disciplined approach?
So we may have a simple case of a failure in systems and the company agrees that it was an incorrect approach taken or we may have a situation where the company considers the correct approach has been taken. Most likely a bit of both. Either way, I would suggest that’s life and as an example of OTT H&S it is simply an opportunistic dig. By which I mean, if you want to publish on forum how you would expect that task to be completed then I would wager a sum that you will find some who will challenge your approach as OTT and others as insufficient. The forums are full of such examples.
I urge us all that we fully consider why such an approach might be happening before simply condemning it out of hand or assuming that it is a failure of H&S professionals.

I wonder if the Southern Electric safety manager uses this forum, if so please come on and let us into your thinking?

I think this is a case of "one size fits all" whereby any work at height requires the use of such equipment.

Risk assessments/method statements have probably been carried out as a blanket approach with no room for manoeuvre for the people doing the work.

I would rather have it OTT than the opposite as, at least nobody got hurt.

The point re hard hat is again a blanket rule - if you give an inch they take a mile.

Devils advocate...

The picture does show that the 'control measures' appear collectively over the top, but , put this into context. The team might be relamping conventional height street lighting as well and will adopt the same (and indeed correct) control measures at different locations. Thus they are doing the right thing. A separate risk assessment for differing heights of street lighting in potentially the same location and conditions would, in my opinion, be really OTT.

The hard hat will protect against head injuries that might happen from contact with, for example, the lighting standard during positioning of the work platform/ MEWP. This is a good thing.

In this case I agree with anyone who translates 'OTT' with good common sense. As with many, many things posted throughout the forums it is all about interpretation, isn't it?

#5: "the use of the barriers around the post warns pedestrians that something is being done above head hight (sic) and makes them move around it with caution."

A barrier is...............a barrier. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't agree that we should knock fellow professionals here. A great many things are said and done in our respective employer's undertaking that we are not necessarily made aware of?
Not all things 'health and safety' are done first-hand by health and safety people. And that's a good thing.

According to our Code of Conduct: "9. Members shall not recklessly or maliciously injure, or
attempt to injure, whether directly or indirectly, the professional reputation, prospects or business of another."

So how does this sit with the uninformed comments about sanctions against our H&S colleagues in SE?

Assumptions are being made without a shred of evidence apart from what was written in the Mail, & I for one am more than a bit dismayed that their professional integrity is being questioned when nobody is in possession of the full facts.

Top post! This story has come from one photo and no evidence. Hasn't anyone learned anything about the gutter press in recent weeks?

Ian,

So let me get this right; are you suggesting that all "elf & safety" stories in the Mail should automatically be referred to the PSC??

In that case, we must include any conker; hanging basket or plastic duck "factual stories" that have, & will continue to appear in the papers!

As I said previously, there is not a shred of evidence so far that any H&S professional (who may not even be a member of IOSH!) has had anything to do with the scenario depicted, & even if they had, there is already a body of support for what actually allegedly took place!!!

A wide angle shot would have been nice, perhaps showing what seems to be bollards separating the public from the traffic.

For my money, the boys done well.

As an electrician I have been in positions such as this on more than one occasion and had members of the wide-awake public walking right through barriers, even removing tapes etc and almost throwing me off stepladders, not to mention trying to balance the things on uneven road surfaces.

I cant believe we are criticising people for trying to work too safely, the fact is that as safety professionals we all have to asses risks and make decisions based on those assessments, the fiction is that all safety professionals will take the same approach. It is not our place to question the validity of some one elses assessment not withstanding our right to disagree with it. What the picture does show is a safety culture which is obviously working and if that is the result of an over zealous, policy, risk assessment and training regime then so be it. Will I be giving advice and formulating ssow based on what folk will think? I think Not

Its the daily mail ignore it

As hinted at in #17 the barrier is not there for the use of dogs as stated in #2 (or on the other hand..Maybe) as the barrier would be used to prevent inadvertent access to the electrical control gear, opened for access to the lamp fuse. On the platform would be...

Voltage tester, continuity tester, lamp, old lamp, possibly a loop impedance test instrument as well. At least a few hand tools including a drill as the bolts may have been corroded.

The picture angle is too tight. A wider angle may show the pavement had indeed be blocked off.

Hi all,

the response amongst this forum over a DM image and story is quite disheartening to me, I can see the positives and negatives, but I am not going to be getting into a tennis match or mud slinging contest about the hypothetics of the scenario.

It's the DM FGS!

Surely you do yourselves, and IOSH, no favours at all with comments such as this.

What a fantastic response to my post. It has gone in all sorts of direction, some which I would never have thought about.
Many good arguments from vastly different starting points, some I can agree with and some I think are over the top. I like the argument that the company has instilled a safety culture into their workforce, who will automatically wear helmet, high vis and harness. I not so convinced that it has extended to pedestrian safety (parking on pavement - walking under the boom). What about the blind and mothers with pushchairs. Most people faced with this will cross the road, perhaps at considerable risk!
The work at height assessment seems to have ignored the fact that ladders and step ladders are not banned, but are allowable for short duration work providing suitable precautions are taken. The HSE guidance on stepladders suggests that in such circumstances it is possible to lash the stepladder to the post to ensure it will not topple.
My original point was that OTT precautions to remove a small risk to the individual employee simply transfer a greater risk to the innocent general public who have only their common sense to keep themselves safe on the highway.
Thank you all. Most enlightening. Keep up the good work of saving lives.

Roly

Rayraps post on the prosecution by the HSE for ignoring workers concerns over the use of gloves, posses an interesting point. As a trainer who facilitates the SSSTS and SMSTS courses I regularly hear about complaints from site supervisors and site managers who have experienced a similar situation on construction sites, with their views and the views of workers, being railroaded, by site rules and 'zero tolerance' policies. It will be interesting to see when, and if this spills over into the construction industry. It seems to me from my observations that the construction industry is becoming increasingly PPE dependant, with PPE being considered the first resort, not the last. How much of this is insurance driven, rather than Health and Safety Driven?

his post is not gunna make me the most popular chap on here, but :

I do hope all posters on this site who have made huge assumptions based on one photo and a few lines of Daily Wail text, actually use better quality evidence when carrying out their usual H&S role. -

This paper is notoriously anti H&S and may not fully investigate or reveal the full circumstances if it gets in the way of a 'good' story

The Sun (& later the DM) recently ran a story about 4 firefighters 'breaking the rules' and 'ignoring common sense' by using a lift during a fire situation. The firefighters were pretty much branded lazy and stupid in these pieces of fiction. The truth is that yes, something did go badly wrong, but they had used a firefighting lift - purpose designed, built and installed for the purpose firefighter access. A little investigating by the Scum reporter would have discovered this, but perhaps the headline wouldn't have been so sexy.

So forgive me if I do not add to the (mainly) ill informed criticism that has been posted on this thread as I prefer evidence rather than assumptions to make decisions.

By the way I don't read the Daily Mail or the Sun simply because I like to think for myself on such issues.