Hi folks, I have been working as a health and safety offices for a SME(300 employees) for the last 4 months, I was brought in to help the current H&S Manager. This is largest company I have worked in, within a H&S Role. I have several Questions When I did the Risk Assessments for people working in Offices I included training for Working at Height for the engineers, who have to use ladders to access the light fittings / sprinkler system / smoke alarms. Also DSE Assessments for those using DSE daily. I was told the RA’s looked as if the place was in chaos and he changed them taking out the W@H and DSE recommendations saying it had been done, I asked the training officer and they never issued any W@H training and DSE assessments haven’t been done in over 3 years. The RA still has my name on it. On existing RA’s done by Shift managers before I started all mention the need for Manual Handling Training. The H&S managers stated it was done within the past 3 yrs and does not need to be done again. A lot of the staff are new and they are performing MH Tasks Daily, the training he provided was short talk and loads of new posters. They don’t use the Permit to Work system except for Hot Works. I have been told they don’t need to, as RS and Method Statements are enough. There is not one RA with the H&S managers name on it. Because I am new I keep getting told I don’t know enough, I have 2 years experience in Small businesses (20-30 employees), and have been providing training to businesses for over 2 yrs. I feel like I am just a puppet for the existing H&S Manager. Getting confused!!!!!! I want experience, but good experience not someone who just wants to tick the boxes, just need to get it off my chest. Wife sick listening to me! Sorry for being so long winded……………….

Oh dear this sounds poor. My humble view of most risk assessments is that they are often too "deep" in some areas, with assessor trying to establish the risk to the nth degree for their favourite topic and not having enough "breadth" ie not locking widely enough at other less obvious ( or routine risks) . I my workplace (mainly labs) people obsess about COSHH but ignore things like manual handling and general workplace stuff. As the H&S safety manager I make it a point of (on the whole) not doing the risk assessments. I expect the people on the “shopfloor” (the labs etc) to do them. I will provide training and advice but the risk assessments belong to the scientists etc. I would never dream of telling someone that risk assessment is excessive or gives a bad impression of a workplace. Some places might look scary but the assessment is about looking at the controls and deciding if they are sufficient. It looks bad if a H&S professional is saying that certain risks are fully covered and don’t even need to be reviewed. I can’t offer any personal advice other than start looking for a job somewhere with a more positive attitude to H&S. If you have a stomach for a fight, then stick to your guns, and maybe take it upstairs. Depending where you work the unions might be of help. Finally remember your rights under Employment Rights Act as a whistleblower, if it really hits the fan.

Although this wo't help your job plight have you an e mail history of the assessments before and after the changes. If not then the server backups will have historical data. What about signed copies. Also, can you assess the higher risks (eg W@H) seperately?

And my advice, in answer to the question, is to stay and try to get it put right. Difficult I know but it will build up your persuasiopn skills. If you are gettin nowhere then you need to start reading SHP from the back pages first!

In relation to the remarks of 'stuff4blockes', what you describe, Trevor', is exposure to a stimualting situation. Whether you convert that into 'great experience' depends largely on what you do to make sense of the stimulating situation by understanding the vairety of inlfuences on people at work there, in particularly managers. What you, or anyone else, studies when gaining qualifications obviously depends on what qualifications you or they study for, and how innovatively they go about it. In relation to the opportunity you describe, perhaps the single action you can take to convert your experiences into 'great and good' rather than 'great but dreadful, is to read 'Psychology in Organizations. The Social Identity Approach', S Alexander Haslam, Sage, 2nd edition, 2004. Reading and digesting this and simialr titles are very, very 'real work', whether they are studied for qualifications or simply to learn to understand people who create the situation you describe and to coach them about the alternatives available.

I don't see how he is committing fraud in the slightest and i certainly don't see the police putting cuffs on him. As a companies risk assessments aren't legal documents, They may possible used in a court case to establish if they where suitable and sufficient but there not a legal document. Phil

Trevor As others have said, in one form or another, welcome to the real world! There are a couple of extra points that occur to me. First, is there a "back story"? It sounds rather as though the individual in question has not just strayed from the straight and narrow right now purely for the purpose of making your life a misery. It might help to try to get a feel for it. Second, think who your friends are in the business. You have only been there a short time but you will already have made some friends, possibly some unlikely ones at that. It may help to reflect on who they might be who might speak up for you, if only over coffee with colleagues. I don't mean be soft to curry favour, far from it, be demonstrably 100% professional to win respect and give those friends real grounds for supporting you. On the vexed subject of risk assessment, is there actually any sort of in-house protocol that says who does them, who signs them off and, vitally, who checks that resulting actions have been sorted? I suspect not. It's thoroughly good practice if, as seems to be the case, lots of people are involved in it and it might be a route to let a little sunlight in on present arrangements.