Posted By Taff2 I was at a wedding party on Friday night & spent an hour with 2 ex-rugby team mates, who I had not met for 15 years, discussing the pros and cons of health & safety. Both are manual labourers - One works for the Forestry Commission - the other maintains vehicles for the local council. The former's complaint about H&S was that it was driven by the insurance culture and the "bonkers conkers" brigade - forcing them to attend a 1/2 day training course every time they have an item of equipment replaced - they change drills every 6 weeks!! Each course is identical & they have not learnt anything new in the last 8 years!!! The other stated that his employer forces them to conduct task based risk assessment for every item of kit they work on - 5 or 6 machines per day. "We have to write a risk assessment every time we change a nut" was his opening gambit. Although they perform the jobs regularly / daily for the last 25 years - the council safety officer insists that they complete these 30-45 minute risk assessment. Does it make your task safer? since you have to think about what you do / the hazards / risks etc. I enquired - "Not at all - we get so fed up with them that we simply complete them from habit & never pay any attention to the contents" It was nice to be nostalig for a while and talk about the real issues that H&S impacts on "normal" people.

Posted By Heather Collins Sadly it sounds like both of them have employers who've missed the point. Sensible health and safety anyone?

Posted By AlB Risk Assessments are a cruicial tool that drives down risks within every industry. They are an essential part of work and working and are required in order to identify what may go wrong and what the consequences and subsequent controls are. So a risk assessment is needed to put things into context - that is its whole purpose - and therefore, if you KNOW what the risks and preventative actions are, then you don;t need to prepare another risk assessment for the same task. Risk Assessment for the sake of risk assessment will have a NEGATIVE effect on a business - people soon become fed up of doing them and their meaning deteriorate and they become less useful - as your mates described, they fill them in for the sake of filling them in. If they were to use a brand new piece of equipment that they had not used previously, or undertaking a task that is not routine, then yes, a RA is needed, but not if its for the sake of having a piece of paper to wave about.

Posted By RCH I know a number of organisations that operate in the same way, for many different reasons but the main one has already been listed above "not understanding" what is meant by or required by Risk Assessments. I think getting Operatives actively involved in Risk Assessments is a great thing but not to this extent. Plus why have they been given a time scale in which to carry out the assessments? This is complete nonsense, some 2min Risk Assessments can say more than someone spending 30mins just trying to find hazards. Where in our current legislation does it stipulate that we need to spend 30,40,50 etc. minuets carrying out an assessment?? While legislation requires risk assessments to be carried out, it does not state how or in how much detail although it does acknowledge that a little knowledge of the work being carried out and of health and safety matters is useful. Unfortunately the term 'risk assessment' has also become something of a 'buzz' phrase that slips easily off the tongue without being fully understood. In practice, assessing risks is just one relatively small step in a much larger hazard reduction process which basically has five main stages: • identification of hazards; • elimination of as many hazards as possible; • assessment of risk from the residual hazards; • implementation of measures to reduce to a minimum any likely ill effects from the residual hazards; • monitoring the effectiveness of the precautionary measures. The term risk assessment is frequently (and erroneously) used to describe the complete hazard reduction process. Essentially the hazard reduction process is subjective with its effectiveness depending to a great extent to the experience, knowledge and attitude of the person carrying it out. It can result in a plethora of paperwork which may be seen as counter-productive in small companies with resultant reluctance to implement the technique. A 'check list' approach, as opposed to a risk-based approach, has been developed and appears popular with small to medium sized contractors and manufacturers who do not have the resources to carry out individual assessments. However, there is a danger that this stereotyped approach can lead to 'lip service' risk assessments being carried out from a manager's desk. All im saying is BE REALISTIC people. RCH. (AIOSH)