This should be interesting. I ask because I have the thread about disability and H&S on the go with some very interesting views. I believe you have to be a H&S consultant to know what one is.

Consultant: a professional individual paid above the market rate to provide opinion.

Calum - I think you have answered a question you wish was asked (with respect) based around competency. I do not disagree with your comments but you do not define at a basic level what a H&S Consultant is/is not.

But surely the focus is on the word 'Consultant' which (in my mind) is a different role to Officer, Co-ordinator, Manager, Adviser, Director. I am employed by my company so I cannot be a Consultant? Am I wrong here or what?! If I was an outsider charging by the hour or day or week or whatever either as self employed or from a Company of Consulatnts that would make me a Consultant...right?....

Reminds me of the old response: A consultant is someone who you pay to come in and tell you what the time is He then asks to see your watch Tells you the time Keeps your watch & your money

^^ Only 100k? ;-)

*Yacht*

Heather runs one. It's £100k. :o)

On a serious note that looks really useful .. Thanks

"Set yourself up as a Ltd Co (less than £50)". but this is not the only cost of running a Ltd company! And often not recommended for what is often nothing more than a sole trading set up. There are other options but they all have costs and disadvantages Talk to an accountant before making any such decision! Maybe an accountant in this context is a financial consultant? What is a consultant? Someone with whom you contract (pay) to help you with your business and who isn't an employee. p48

Thank you all, I realise Friday is almost upon us and if this turns into the Friday thread who knows what a Consultant will be by teatime?

I once employed the services of an expert probate lawyer & when we were discussing his fees he simply said that "you are paying me for what I know....not what I do!" Zyggy

I don't think you can beat Mervs post. Although it makes for an interesting business model.

In answer to the title question, a Health and Safety Consultant is not only at the top of his game, but everybody around them knows it, is highly respected by his peers and lesser practitioners, has reached such a position in his lucrative career that he no longer needs to work except on alternate Tuesday and Thurday mornings and is, of course, male. His erudite postings on this forum are universally regarded with awe and a certain amount of affection whilst his abundant contributions to occupational H&S are highly valued and always recognised and acknowledged by politicians, enforcers and the media. He doesn’t walk on water as his snakeskin safety shoes would be ruined, but he could if he wished. And then I woke up and it was Friday.

David you must have seen the script of the upcoming blockbuster movie "The life of Merv" Anon

Some people clearly have a dim view of consultants. I think this is partly due to certain people calling themselves consultants when that is not really the service they offer, but also because people do not understand the role. I believe a consultant is someone who provides an objective professional opinion to solve a problem or realise an opportunity for the client. I think the technical aspect (in this case health and safety) is only a small part of this offering, and the main skill is consultancy, which can be applied very widely. Response #2 highlights a dilemma. Most consultants are working in areas where there is no relevant definition of competence and are asked to do things that have not been don often enough for there to be any clear idea of what the correct solution will be. If you are engaging consultants to do work that does not require this ‘higher level’ offering you are probably wasting your money. The watch explanation provided in #8 is a very old one. It is often quoted as a complaint against consultants, but I think this can be a perfectly acceptable role for a consultant. There are many situations where the client thinks they have a solution to a problem but wants someone to provide an objective opinion of whether they have got it right. This is exactly where a consultant can be particularly useful. People who think £500 per day is a lot should heed the advice given in #19 to get expert advice before they do it themselves. The reality is that this is only going to give you a reasonable and not great income. My favourite (relevant) story is an ex-employee being brought back to the company to advise them about the source of a major production problem. He entered the factory, drew a cross on the offending item and left. The company fixed the component and production returned to normal. However, they were taken aback to receive an invoice for £20k, even though the problem was costing them millions. They asked for an itemised bill to explain why the invoice was so much. The response was “£1 for the piece of chalk and £19,999 knowing where to draw the cross.”

andybz's story at #31 is similar to a tale I heard years ago of a plumber who charged a lawyer a significant sum of money for removing a large obsolete cast iron bath from his house. The lawyer remonstrated that the plumber was charging far too much for simply using one hit from a large hammer to cause the bath to shatter into manageable pieces, and demanded an itemised bill. The plumber promptly provided one which listed small sums for the physical tasks of hitting the bath and subsequently carrying away the pieces, plus a large sum for "the specialist skill and knowledge of knowing exactly where to strike the bath in order to cause it to shatter as required."