IIAI - I'd be wary

Very dogmatic view that there is only ever one THE cause..... and usually this comes down to unsafe behaviour, so limits proper consideration of the management preconditions that the UK Health and Safety Executive estimated in the 1980s were associated with ~70% of all accidents, if not the ONLY cause.

.....and lack of independence between organisation and approved trainers.

I have done the IIAI course, it was run by Paul Difford when I did it about 6 years ago. I'm not sure that Peter has attended the course but I know he has been actively involved in discussion about Paul's book on accident causation theory.

If you have not done much accident investigation I would recommend it as you will find Paul is an engaging and interesting trainer. There is theory and practice in this course so discussion on causation is only a relatively small part. The reasons for and principles of conducting a rigorous investigation are covered.

Like Peter I am an ex HSE inspector and for me personally the challenge to my established views about causation and the unsafe act vs management failings causal spectrum was the most refreshing thing about the whole course.

Most employers will ask for experience of incident investigation in a job description but it will not usually be something they ask you to evidence through formal training, many recruitment ads show employers barely know the difference between IOSH and NEBOSH so id be surprised if they were specific about incident investigation qualifications. Some high hazard industries may be more discerning though.

The number of available courses for accident investigation is quite small, (you have not mentioned IOSH). I think Peter is missing a gap in the market, and if he wrote and delivered an accident investigation course i'd recommend that one too.

Hope that helps if you've not already booked something

Andrew

Not wholly missed the gap in the market!!

I'm running two 1.5 day courses back to back for a well known client in the north of Scotland next month, and we've been doing this for this client and its predecessor since 2006.

.....and I've updated the course to replace some slides with slides based on delegates' case study work on a real incident where initially everyone thought that the cause was a personality clash. But when they (not me) dug deeper they found numerous unsafe conditions associated with management pre-conditions. The unsafe acts at the sharp end suddenly become almost irrelevant.

.....but it's not likely that we'll be marketing this as open courses any time soon. All about repeat business from existing clients (you know our business model).

mneatis
One of the industrial accident investigators’ key skills is to be able to analyse (researching further as necessary) what witnesses tell them. So, for instance, if a person said to you “IIAI - I’d be wary” and “Very dogmatic view that there is only ever one THE cause...” you would need to enquire further as to how that view had been formed. Once you do, you discover that the person has absolutely no knowledge of how that highly regarded Institute operates and has never ever attended any of its courses. You then attend one or more of the courses yourself and discover first hand that what the witness told you was completely untrue and fabricated (you also find out why so many well known and respected organisations keep sending investigators on their courses and why organisations like IOSH approach them for assistance when preparing guidance). You then join the Institute and become aware of its code of conduct [http://www.iiai.org.uk/CodeofConduct.htm] and certain views on cause [http://www.iiai.org.uk/ExecNoteRedressingTheBalance.html]. Consequently, you are left with no option but to declare the witness wholly unreliable and question their motives. This might then also raise suspicions about claimed statements by the HSE which, when analysed, are also found to be wildly inaccurate.

Anyway, drop me an email mneatis and I’ll arrange for you to take the on-line foundation course free of charge; you can then make up your own mind about that one at least.