Link to this Post | Leave a Comment
Health and Safety Executive, Judith Hackitt has been forced to respond to an article by Nick Ferrari of the Daily Express, who blames the HSE for implementing too many health and safety regulations upon us.
Nick Ferrari's "Healthy dose of Humbug" article reveals his view that a "crippling obsession" with health and safety policies now face every single one of us, with negative consequences to our lifestyles and the society in which we live.
"Healthy dose of Humbug" by Nick Ferrari.
Sunday 3rd July, 2011
The extraordinary assault on our crippling obsession with health and safety by the very woman who controls the cursed body in charge of it all couldn't help but bring pots and kettles to my mind and I'm pretty certain most of yours too.
Pots with the lids firmly on and kettles where children are standing back at least 10 yards and clad in fire-retardant jim-jams and close to freshly checked extinguishers, naturally. Chairman of the Health and Safety Executive Judith Hackitt criticised the jobsworth culture that has robbed our young of a normal childhood, made employers' lives a complex hell of regulation and inspection and allowed councils to field legions of tax-funded snoopers and petty enforcers.
We can only assume the poor lady had banged her head on a low-hanging flower basket or been partially blinded in a vigorous game of conkers on the day she gave this interview. For she runs the ghastly organisation that has closed playgrounds, had trees felled and even managed to stop tennis fans enjoying Andy Murray's annual ritual not to get to the Wimbledon final - and she has done for three-and-a-half years!
She said: "Children today are denied, often on spurious health and safety grounds, many of the formative experiences that shaped my generation. Playgrounds have become joyless for fear of a few cuts and bruises.
The creeping culture of risk-aversion and fear of litigation also puts at risk our children's education and preparation for adult life."
Hoo-bloody-ray but she is someone who can actually do something about this tosh. I grew up being transported in a cot in a car, not a special seat that had to have been welded into place. I went to school where we cut our knees if we fell out of the trees so, guess what? We made damned sure we didn't fall. If I needed pills from the doctor the bottle opened with a simple twist. You didn't need the agility of an Olympic gymnast and strength of a weightlifter to open it. I bought packets of peanuts in the days when they didn't need "warning: this product may contain nuts" all over them. Most puzzling of all I slept on a mattress that didn't have the notice "do not attempt to swallow" on it. Who has tried that? Lord Prescott? In short I, and I'm pretty safe to assume you too, survived. Our firefighters were allowed to slide down the pole and trees were allowed to stand bearing conkers. Under HSE policy (and doesn't that sound chillingly sinister?) both the pole and the trees were razed."
Nick Ferrari's column highlights part of the problem with the current debate on health and safety.
The term 'health and safety' has become used so widely and wrongly that it has come to stand for a huge range of things which have no relation to managing risks in the workplace.
HSE doesn't exist to shut playgrounds, or cut trees down. We don't have anything to do with children's car seats, or infuriating pill bottle tops. Mattresses, peanuts and conkers have nothing to do with safety at work, and are entirely outside our remit.
And regarding Murray Mount, Mr Ferrari couldn't be further from the truth - rather than pushing for it to be closed we were campaigning for a bit of common sense and making precisely the opposite point - there were no health and safety grounds on which to close it down.
Few would argue that we need to get the focus on health and safety back on managing serious risks in the workplace where it belongs.
We certainly wouldn't.
Labels: Knowledge
Arco website help desk - Need help? email: web.help@arco.co.uk © Arco Limited, Registered in England, No 133804, PO Box 21 Waverley Street, Hull HU1 2SJ.
VAT No: 166911546
