Public Safety and Risk Assessment

Improving Decision Making

David J. Ball, Laurence Ball-King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781849713818
• eBook ISBN: 9781317972402
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Insurance
• Index: Business

This book aims to encourage a more reflective, multidisciplinary approach to public safety, and the 'reenfranchisement' of those affected by this new phenomenon. Over the past decade health and safety has become a major issue of public interest. There are countless stories of health and safety activities interfering with public life, preventing some beneficial activity from taking place – even creating absurd or dangerous situations. On the one hand, risk assessment, properly conducted, is highly beneficial – it saves lives and prevents injuries. But on the other, it can damage public life. Why has this come about, and does it have to be like that? The authors examine the origins of the problem, look critically at the tools used by safety assessors and their underlying assumptions, and consider important differences between public life and industry (where the approaches largely originated). They illuminate the whole with an analysis of legal requirements, attitudes of stakeholders, and recent research on risk perception and decision making. The result is a profound and important analysis of risk and safety culture and a framework for managing public safety more effectively.

1

Clear and Foreseeable Danger

At some time during the last 30 years actions carried out under the banner of ‘health and safety’ started to intrude upon public and private life – that is, life away from the office or factory – in a way previously unknown. This intrusion has not been universally benign, and has increasingly given rise to varying degrees of irritation and even ridicule. The phenomenon can be observed above all in countries like the UK and some other western-style, English-speaking countries around the world, from Australia and New Zealand to North America, but also to some extent in other cultures, India and Singapore for example, where western-style thinking has footholds. It appears, also, to be spreading.

Where this influence came from, and with what rationality and what legitimacy, is a question deserving of an answer. In the UK, in the present decade of the 2010s, barely a day passes without a media story denouncing some incident in which health and safety has impacted unfavourably upon public life. Some stories are distortions and some are daft, but others have grains of truth, substance even, giving rise to a widening sense of anger, frustration and despair. There is also a suspicion that some interventions in the name of health and safety may be causing more harm than good. By 2010 the situation was such that the British government felt compelled to asked Lord Young, a respected business leader, to report on the operation of health and safety laws, and the growth of what it called the ‘compensation culture’. As Prime Minister David Cameron put it:

Good health and safety is vitally important. But all too often good, straightforward legislation designed to protect people from major hazards has been extended inappropriately to cover every walk of life, no matter how low risk.

As a result, instead of being valued, the standing of health and safety in the eyes of the public has never been lower. Newspapers report ever more absurd examples of senseless bureaucracy that gets in the way of people trying to do the right thing and organisations that contribute to building a bigger and stronger society. And businesses are drowned in red tape, confusion and the fear of being sued for minor accidents.
(HM Government, 2010)

As noted, this phenomenon is not unique to the UK, although it may, for reasons to be described, be more strongly felt in this land. Indeed, there are no particular reasons why it should be, unless one thinks that British people have some unusual trait predisposing them to situations of this kind. This is because health and safety, risk assessment, and the kind of thinking which accompanies these activities, is an international phenomenon propagated by governments and multinational institutions and international standards.¹ We are aware, from our own contacts and observations, that what is happening in the UK is observable to varying degrees in countries around the globe.

This pilgrimage, as some may see it, which is ostensibly about making things safer, is in some situations impossible to ignore. Set foot outside of your home and you may be regaled with warnings and unsolicited advice of variable quality on all manner of things connected with your personal safety and well-being. This continues whether your journey is by pavement, bus, underground or train. Even before venturing out there is a constant stream of the same transmitted over the airwaves. At night, when most people are trying to relax or put their children to bed, one may be reminded that you may never see them again because ‘toxic smoke can kill’. There is, of course, a time and place for everything, but other questions simmer alongside the momentary stress engendered by this activity. For instance: ‘Do these actions actually make people safer?’; ‘Is there an ulterior motive for them?’; ‘Might some of these measures undermine health-giving, community-enhancing activities?’; ‘Who is paying for it all?’

As Lord Hoffmann, one of Britain’s most-esteemed Law Lords, remarked of his own experience a few years earlier: ‘… people suddenly began to notice (other) ways in which activities which they used to enjoy were disappearing because authorities responsible for those activities were afraid that it might be said they had not taken sufficient steps to avoid an accident’ (Hoffmann, 2005).

One should, nonetheless, tread carefully. We ought not to forget that it hasn’t always been like this. In its pioneering days, health and safety made huge inroads into the annual toll of workplace accidental deaths and disease. In just one British industry alone, coal mining, the number of workers who died in accidents fell from what is now a barely imaginable 400 plus per year in the 1950s to about 20 in the 1980s. Although output of coal roughly halved over that period because of pit closures, this is by no means enough to discount the dramatic gain in safety. Those who brought it about should be immensely proud, and as we hear of the continuing toll of mining deaths in China, the USA and New Zealand, and near-misses in Chile, it is something for which others of us should be deeply thankful.

Today, though, everyone in the United Kingdom is aware of the steady stream of anecdotes about ‘health and safety’, some of which appear to lack any sense of proportion. In 2006, Bill Callaghan, then Chair of the Health and Safety Commission (HSC), which was at that time overseer of the primary regulatory body, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), became so irate that he felt obliged to issue a press release entitled: ‘HSC tells health and safety pedants to “get a life”’ (HSC, 2006a). Unfortunately, and now some years later, these stories continue. They range in significance from the ludicrous and entertaining to the tragic. They are so widespread that most people can recount their own personally experienced examples. This is a serious matter for two principal reasons. On the one hand it serves to discredit and undermine safety procedures which, when properly conducted, are obviously very much in the public interest. Hence the ‘clear and foreseeable danger’ of this chapter’s title – a reference to the threat which could ensue should the wider health and safety movement be discredited, and lose public and political support. On the other hand, in public life, and as Lord Hoffmann and others have noted, it has deterred and sometimes prevented people of whatever age from enjoying their free time, public space and social activities which, amongst other things, promote health and community. It also goes without saying that the pursuit of safety does not come free: it consumes stunning amounts of public and private money.

The causes of this situation have been ascribed to many things. Marcus Bailie, Head of Inspection for the Adventure Activities Licensing Service, has traced its British origins back to a Welsh mining disaster in 1966 in which a colliery waste tip slumped onto the village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, mainly school children (Bailie, 2007). As Bailie recounts it:

months later Lord Alfred Robens, then Chairman of the National Coal Board, was still trying to justify to the people of Aberfan the actions of the Coal Board, the mine owners, and the government in the face of the physical and psychological damage which had all but obliterated a generation of their village. By and large he failed, was later heavily criticized, but famously never apologized.

In the period to come, in his quiet and private moments, it would be easy to imagine Robens’ horror of a world where injustice on this scale could happen in the name of work. Horror, and perhaps an initial determination to ensure it never could happen again. If ever there was a ‘something must be done moment’ this was surely it. If this was indeed his motive then just three years later Robens got his opportunity, when he was asked to Chair a government commission to look at the management of health and safety in the workplace, and to prepare a report. As will be seen later in this book, the subsequent Robens Report of 1972 set out the vision, and the resulting Health and Safety at Work etc. Act of 1974 set out the detail. But how then, in the space of a little over 30 years, have we moved from the public clamour for safer workplaces to a broad recognition that it has all gone a bit too far? The Nanny State – children suffocated in cotton wool – and the abandonment of anything which could cause harm, irrespective of whatever benefits may be thrown out with the bathwater, is becoming the enemy (The Times, 2006).

Fingers have been pointed at far more immediate causes of this condition. These include: false attribution (‘Nowt to do with us guv!’); cowboy health and safety professionals lacking qualifications or experience;² the ‘ignorant’ public; exaggerated, even ‘fabricated’, media stories; a risk-averse society; a wave of managerialism which hinders people using their mental faculties; the ‘litigation society’,³ generally attributed, though with little evidence, to America; no-win-no-fee solicitors; the ‘evil’ tendency of insurers to settle claims out of court; the cost of public liability insurance; ‘red tape’ and paperwork mountains; self-protectionism by some agencies; a lack of communication skills; inappropriate use of 20/20 hindsight after an accident; performance targets; ‘soft-hearted’ courts and the deep-pocket syndrome; and unaccountable advisory and regulatory agencies.

It is probably true that all of these things have at times contributed to the situation which now exists. Box 1 provides a sample of mainly recent headlines, stories and internet postings which illustrate the breadth of the issues and the worries that people have. There is no shortage of supply. The impacts affect both individuals and society at large. The perceived causes reflect many of those just listed.

Box 1 A sample of media reported stories about health and safety

The daft and the dubious

‘Banned gnomes can return home’ – A Metropolitan Borough Council apologised to a tenant who had been told to remove two gnomes, a pottery tortoise and a welcome plaque from outside her home. It said there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ of its fire safety rules (The Times, 1 December 2009).

‘Pair told door plaque unsafe’ – A housing association required an elderly couple to remove their wall hangings and flowers, citing health and safety: ‘We recognise that health and safety requirements sometimes seem over the top. However, the safety of our residents must always come first’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/puffbox/hyperpuff/audiovideo/england/7606636.stm)

‘Outplayed – but some people still think we’re conkerors’ – Tom Whipple reports that conkers have been banned by one school because of fear of nut allergies, and another because they could be considered as an ‘offensive weapon’. A third school requires children to wear goggles (The Times, 5 October 2009).

‘Chemical reaction. Students prevented from experimenting in laboratories are soon lost to science’ – Scientists and government advisers are warning that a heavy focus on exams, combined with fear of wayward Bunsen burners and volatile reactions in test tubes, are elbowing experiments out of the school day … because of safety concerns. It’s the difference between flicking through an Italian recipe book and trying to make your own cheese ravioli from scratch. The Times, 5 October 2009).

‘Swimmers at an outdoor London pool have been warned they will have to leave the water if it rains too much because of health and safety rules’ (London Evening Standard, 9 May 2009).

Worrying

‘It’s not just the discs that have lost their way’ says Anatole Kaletsky of a junior official who lost 25 million tax records in HMRC’s internal mail. ‘The worrying thing is that Britain’s data protection regime will prevent you finding out when you last paid your own utility bill unless you remember an obscure password, yet it fails to prevent 25 million bank accounts being disclosed’ (The Times, 22 November 2007).

‘The zombie health and safety inspectors should be replaced with a risk commission’ says Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. ‘I puzzle over what can be done to replace this puritan revolution. Its health and safety apparat enjoys a power similar to that of the military. Its work is enhanced if it can scare us witless. This apparat exploits the politics of fear much as does the military’ (The Guardian, 22 June 2007).

‘Verity, I say unto you: trust the mums’ – Libby Purves reports on modern trends in parenting. ‘Natural responsiveness to babies is actively discouraged; formulaic managerialism, which wrecks everything from education to broadcasting, is seeping into motherhood. We are encouraged to see babies as a management challenge …’ (The Times, 30 October 2007).

‘Extra billions fail to raise school standards’ – Greg Hurst reports a Conservative spokesman as saying. ‘Huge sums of money have been spent on fortnightly initiatives and bureaucracy, which are burying teachers under a mountain of paperwork and rarely lead to improvements in education’ (The Times, 2 December 2009).

‘Who knows best?’ – According to The Times, Wikipedia volunteer editors are complaining of a rise in ‘Kafkaesque bureaucracy and rules’ to stifle rogue incidents of misinformation (25 November 2009).

‘Government advertisements are bad for our health’ – ‘Why scare us, when reality is bad enough?’ says Mary Dejevsky. ‘Using public transport these days increasingly resembles a descent into Dante’s nine circles of Hell,… I find a huge black and brown advert warning me – or rather the male of the species – that “drinking causes damage you can’t see”. Except that here you see it all too well: a blood-red jagged flash amid some indeterminate innards, possibly a brain … There’s one for women, too, on another bus stop, showing a similarly brutal red gash obtruding from a bra. Entering the Tube train, I face a diagram derived from the schematic map of the London Underground that assumes I must be in urgent search of treatment for Sexually Transmitted Diseases. There are clinics everywhere, it implies; if you want to, you could be seen right away … On alighting, the message becomes darker still. The frantic appeal “Stop, No, Stop Please, No …” appears against the background of a desperate woman apparently about to be raped. “Please stop taking unbooked minicabs”, orders Transport for London’s footnote – as though nothing untoward ever happened at its own unmanned stations or black-cab drivers were all saints …’ (The Independent, 26 February 2010).

Intriguing

‘Surgeons flout care guidelines’ – On finding that surgeons do not obey health service guidelines during operations, Nick Freemantle, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Birmingham University, writes: ‘Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself’ (The Times, 2 November 2004).

‘Floods caused by managing rivers for habitat biodiversity’ – A correspondent describes the conflict between managing rivers as habitats and safeguarding people’s homes from flooding (The Times, 25 November 2009).

‘A row over plans to erect a fence along the riverside in Otley has taken a new twist with Leeds City Council deciding to seek fresh legal advice over the issue. The plan to erect the £165,000 fence at Wharfe Meadows Park followed a council-commissioned safety review carried out by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), which advised putting up a fence. But the idea of fencing off a section of the open riverside has angered many residents in the town, and more than 1,000 people have signed a petition urging the council to scrap the plan …’ (Yorkshire Evening Post, 15 March 2007).

Disturbing

‘Health and safety in “crisis” says Lord Young’s Headline from an IoSH’s conference in Glasgow. ‘… in the eyes of the general public, health and safety is regarded, “at best, as an object of ridicule, at worst, a bureaucratic nightm...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
• Preface
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Clear and Foreseeable Danger
• 2 Risk Assessment – A Simple Tool?
• 3 Is Safety Paramount?
• 4 Risk and Safety – A National Philosophy
• 5 What Works in Public Life?
• 6 Legal Matters
• 7 Advice – Whose Advice?
• 8 A Closer Look at Decision Making
• 9 Adventure Activities – A Hard Case
• 10 Risk-Benefit Assessment
• 11 In Search of a New Agenda
• 12 Final Thoughts and Résumé
• Notes
• References
• Index