“Health and Safety is integral to success. Board
members who do not show leadership in this area are failing in
their duty as directors and their moral duty, and are damaging
their organisation”
A quote from “Leading Health and Safety at Work”,
new guidelines written ‘by directors, for directors’,
launched yesterday by the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and
the Institute of Directors.
The aim of these guidelines is to remind directors across all
sectors that they must take the lead on health and safety matters,
regardless of the size of their organisation.
Too often health and safety requirements are overlooked by business
organisations who view compliance as a hindrance to
productivity. Judith Hackitt, new chair of HSC explains the
necessity of the new guidelines:
“It is visible leadership from the top of an organisation
which truly makes for an effective health and safety culture which
in turn delivers good health and safety performance…I am
still confounded by the number of people who see ‘health and
safety’ as a barrier to doing things, as experience and
evidence shows that the reverse is true”. She goes on
to say, “the challenge before us is changing behaviour. This
guidance makes it clear what directors need to do but it is their
action and delivery which will really count”.
The guidance takes a common sense approach, offering
straightforward practical advice relating to health and safety
policy in the workplace. It sets out a four-step process to
establish essential health and safety principles:
1. plan the direction for health and safety;
2. deliver health and safety;
3. monitor health and safety; and
4. review health and safety.
It also provides a summary of legal liabilities, a checklist of key
questions for leaders and a list of resources and references for
implementing the guidance in detail.
With the Corporate Manslaughter Act coming into force next year and
with it, the possibility of courts considering the
‘attitude’ of an organisation to health and safety and
the extent to which it followed guidance, this publication makes
for compulsive reading.
The guidelines are available in full at
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg417.pdf