Posted By Lorraine Shuker I am preparing a report on strategies for the management of risk in an office based/call centre type business and would value some opinions on these. Strategy one: Essentially the HSG65 model with operational managers taking responsibility for management of all aspects of H&S with a H&S Advisor resource to support them Strategy two: Having a central team of H&S experts who manage H&S and provide the resources where needed, leaving the operational managers to focus on 'core' business generating activities What do you think the pros and cons of each are?

Posted By Martyn Hendrie I think that your strategy No 2 is fundamentally flawed as "Health and Safety" is a"core business" activity. Managers should manage and Advisers advise. I often come across managers in construction who want to emply more "safety officers" to look after safety. I normally point out that they would be the first to complain when the Safety person starts making decisions and spending their budget. Besides, if you are going to do that the safety people become line managers so why have the original line managers in the first place? Safety is a management responsibility specialists are there to give advice and assistance they should not make executive decisions.

Posted By Raymond Rapp Lorraine I am not convinced that there is an absolute answer, you cut your cloth..or to paraphrase my tutor who once said: 'there are no right and wrongs in health and safety, provided you can justify your actions.' To argue that health and safety advisors advise and managers manage, is all well and good, but who controls the budget - managers! Regards Ray

Posted By jackw. Seems like the perennial question or should that be notion that safety is for safety officer is raising it’s head here. The old chestnut “you’re the safety guy”. I tend to agree with most of what has been said and I guess I generally try to give a similar message to our managers. As a safety officer I have, I hope, some level of competence and knowledge of safety that I can pass on, use to advise etc. as a former production supervisor in a high volume high speed industry I can understand some of what managers believe. I.e. that it is their job to ensure output targets etc. are met, maintained and quality standards kept high. The problem is that a safety officer generally has no line management responsibilities for production staff and can not thus legitimately direct them, interfere with work patterns and practices (ok in “danger” situations I would intervene. Thus it must be part of the business strategy to manage H&S as it occurs at the sharp end. The business case for, costs of not managing safety appropriately are well proven and substantial. So go out and convince managers at all levels that good safety is good business.