Well...........if everyone was to practice what we preach, then we would be redundant wouldn't we?

Hiya Ray - I have used this strap line myself many times over the years - its fact isnt it?

Given the "common sense" shown by staff and managers alike I'm reasonable confident that I shall retire long before I do myself out of a job. Geoff

We dont strive to put ourselves out of a job, we strive for continuous improvement. The best organisations (at health and safety) still use health and safety people to retain knowledge, maintain momentum and provide specialist advice. And there are very few zero harm organisations, and when they do exist it is because there is a H&S specialist somewhere. Even the most mature of safety cultures, as defined in various ways, require the 'self-sufficient management' approach to be sustained and modified and built upon. I DO agree that small/low risk businesses using consultants and full time safety bods should be aiming to be self sufficient, and should not need this resource, and actually agree with most of the points from the OP. However I struggle to think of any other business where they have reached safety Nirvana and dispensed with the safety function.

Most Interesting. I think some people are over-reacting to a journalistic attention-grabbing style headline used for the SHP web article. Try reading the text of the article, not just its headline. If the article faithfully quotes what Judith Hackitt said during the panel debate you'll see that the quotation alleged by the headline differs slightly but significantly enough from what she actually said. Also, what she did say needs to be put in the context of her other comments. Furthermore, note that another panellist, Neil Budworth, a former IOSH president, described "practitioners as both the cause (of) and the solution to the problem of how to change negative perceptions of health and safety". Perhaps the article should also have had a sub-heading like "IOSH ex-president blames practitioners for negative image of health & safety"!!! While giving training sessions, etc., I've sometimes joked that one of my work aims is to do myself out of a job or rather encourage/stimulate my employer to become an organisation which doesn't really need OS&H advisers. However, I've quickly added that various factors will conspire in practice against such a level of attainment. Even so, it does no harm to try or strive (i.e. aim) for such a level - just as organisations like Du Pont aim to do. Perhaps Judith hackitt was being deliberately provocative with her words about OS&H people AIMING to do themselves out of a job. If so, it seems that she succeeded and had the effect of metaphorically whipping some OS&H people into an indignation of the sort likely to be enjoyed by some readers of the Daily Mail when reading the "elf and safety" stories it publishes. Judith Hackitt is surely correct about the need for OS&H people to motivate others, not burden them with paperwork or bore them with tedium. Some of my work and that of colleagues over the years has sometimes been made harder by some other OS&H people past and present, no doubt well-intentioned, who have created unnecessary paperwork, suggested that everything and anything needs to be risk-assessed in great detail, and conducted boring training courses. As I've mentioned in other threads about training on this forum, one classic way to make training courses boring is to include detailed and unncessary coverage of OS&H laws. It's essential to think what such training is intended to achieve. Therefore, courses for non-OS&H people might include a brief summary of which OS&H laws are relevant to the workplaces and activities of those being trained, and then concentrate on what standards are being sought by the laws, for what reasons, and how to meet such standards in practice!

Bob, don't think there too many around these days as it is! I did read the article and I appreciate the journalistic licence to highlight the most contentious aspect of Ms Hackitt's speech. That said, rather than make h&s practitioners the focus I would have preferred something a bit more...cutting, inventive or original. Yes, there is far too much paper work, but it is not the rank and file h&s practitioner who has caused all this 'paper safety'. No, it is the suits in boardrooms, overzealous clients, and dare I say the HSE which have created mountains of meaningless paperwork. Let's get real.

The main point that she and similar others have missed is that courts, barristers etc want suitable and sufficient and 'making things simple' will allow your employer to be in the hands of the claimants etc so there should be a tiered system where front line is made as simple etc as poss but where there is suitable and sufficient documentation etc behind that front line simplicity Why do our own partners e.g. the HSE side with 'others' when the real burden on business has been proved [and made public by the SME's reps] as not to be H&S but other areas especially employment and tax laws so the HSE should be shouting this point from the roof tops In my personal opinion it appears that all who are in high public positions are politicians first and professionals second

"She added that all too often she hears health and safety practitioners demonstrate their knowledge by referring back to specific clauses of legislation – an approach she described as unhelpful in trying to win hearts and minds". I am surprised that nobody has picked up on this reported aspect of the speech which could arguably be put down to the NEBOSH examination process.

boblewis - Despite the smiley symbols after your comments about HSE at #11 and #13 I wonder if your comments might lead to a journalistic headline somewhere "Safety expert calls for abolition of HSE!" Better still, make it more provocative by replacing 'calls' with 'demands'. :-) In reality I guess most if not all of us accept the need for an enforcing body like HSE as part of OS&H within the wider spectrum of life, along with tax inspectors and police officers, etc. What is open to debate however is how HSE operates. Last month I had an impromptu discussion about OS&H with a former HSE inspector who'd retired some years ago. Among other things we readily agreed that the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was a very well-written and effective piece of legislation. Unfortunately, though the 1974 Act was intended to replace various other pieces of detailed and sometimes long outdated pieces of OS&H legislation, it seems that HSE have overlooked this intention: Though the years since 1974 certainly saw the repeal of the outdated regulations, they also saw the introduction of too many and arguably unnecessary new sets of regulations. Surely a system of codes of practice would have been more effective, flexible and acceptable for 1) summarising the significant risks posed by various types of workplaces and activities (both generic and specific), and 2) giving practical advice to employers, etc. about what needs to be done to manage such risks!

HSE are just like any public services, It's in built within their ethos that they are never wrong in the public eye so would never admit privately to individuals either!