Posted By Jane Ling I have finally had the results of my appeal against by job evaluation. As expected my appeal failed. Apparently: - A professional qualification is desirable but not crucial to the role (desptie being part of the essential criteria in the original person spec). - the role holder is only required to have an awareness of health and safety legislation. - human relation skills are not required because I can rely on "legislation/best practice when asking individuals to alter behaviour or fall in line with new policy" (if only it was that simple). - I am required to react to new legislation and therefore do not need to be proactive in setting health and safety strategies. I am sure you are all relieved to hear how easy it is to be a health and safety professional. In case you're wondering, I am going to contact my Union (better late than never) to see if I can take it further. Many thanks for all the helpful responses I received to my original post. Jane

Posted By Paul Adams Jane, Pleased to hear that your Health Authority has such a grip on reality, not! Would strongly recomend taking your skills, experience and enthusiasm somewhere where they will be appreciated, i.e. the private sector. However, when your employer does get sued for whatever reason, your new job description appears to clearly define that you are not the person appointed to provide competent advice as required etc. etc. Good Luck

Posted By Jane Ling I thought I had better clarify, I work for a housing association (not a health authority)and the job evaluation was carried out by an independent!!!! company (The Hay Group). Jane

Posted By Charley Farley-Trelawney How very sad! Interesting how conceptions alter when a serious accident or fatality takes place; I have seen many changes in stance when this particular instance has arisen; the cost after the event can be well beyond the cost to have avoided it in the first place. When will they learn? Charles

Posted By Diane Thomason Jane This is completely outrageous. 1. They have devalued your job for reasons that are false. - human relation skills are not required because I can rely on "legislation/best practice when asking individuals to alter behaviour or fall in line with new policy" - this is simply untrue. do not need to be proactive in setting health and safety strategies - this is also untrue. 2. They have blatantly cheated. If a professional qualification was "essential" in the job spec then it is essential for the role. They can't decide otherwise for the purposes of evaluation. 3. What they have written does not describe a competent person to provide H&S advice under MHSWR. Hence if this sorry list describes the level of competence at which they expect you to work, then they are not equipping themselves with competent H&S advice. The HSE may well be interested in hearing this different version of Competent Person". Only an "awareness" of H&S law? - where would that get you when setting strategy and procedures? Our secretary has more than an "awareness"! If you decide to stay in your job, you have every right to work to these criteria and no more - after all that's what you are being paid for. No more policy development, no more proactive measures. If you decide to leave, you have in effect been forced out of your job, because it has been severely devalued for reasons that are entirely false. I hope your union advises you on the possibility of a constructive dismissal claim. Best of luck with whatever you decide. I am so looking forward to my Hay scheme job evaluation later this year! Diane

Posted By Jim Walker I make no apologies for “bumping“ this back to the top as I feel the underlying issues are something IOSH needs to address. If as it would appear, that many of you out there are subject to this Hay thing. Then its up to our trade body to make sure these assessors understand what our role is about. As a minimum they need an understanding of the legal requirement of our competence. So what about it IOSH, can someone important out there approach Hay?