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March/April 2023 issue

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Review

How Safe is Safe Enough?

Open-access content Wednesday 17th May 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

review-how-safe-is-safe-enough-outline

Rating:

As a writer on risk, fighter pilot and US Air Force safety expert Greg Alston is uniquely qualified. Anyone with a lifetime's experience of operating high-value assets in this high-risk environment is going to have something interesting to say. In Alston's case, he was personally affected by the 9/11 World Trade Center attack; the writer was watching the "twin towers" attack live on TV when his Pentagon office was itself attacked, forcing him to evacuate.

He offers a guide to risk management, specifically aimed at leaders and senior managers. It is all extremely competent, well-written and meticulously researched, but for me it never really delivers against the high hopes I had when I opened the book.

Alston sets out the foundations of a safety management system. His starting point is to recognise the rationale for the effective management of risk, and then to apply an assessment-based approach to its minimisation. He calls on leaders to "win in the risk game" and constantly brings the discussion back to, "how safe is safe enough?"

But what Alston describes as best practice in the US Air Force (USAF) is already legally required in the UK; I doubt therefore that many IOSH Magazine readers will find much that is new. Also, in taking his USAF experience and trying to make it relevant to a wide range of readers, Alston ends up weakening his case. He avoids being specific about military flying: that would limit his audience. However, when stepping into the commercial world, he appears to lack confidence, recognising his core experience is elsewhere. Also, some of the content seems a little dated, perhaps reflecting the fact that this soft cover edition is a reissue of a hardback originally published in 2003.

Even so, there is some great material here. For senior managers, there are some handy reminders about leading by example, facing up to problems (instead of walking past them) and implementing organisation-wide programmes and procedures. The point that you're a leader whether you are the CEO or the team supervisor is well made. There are excellent aide memoires -- for instance, the "morning personal risk assessment" checklist on p 38 and the nine-point "winning the risk game" guide on p 106. There are also good summaries of the risk management programmes of major players such as Lockheed Martin, Schlumberger Technology and General Electric. I just hoped it might have been a bit more personal, novel and exciting.

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 Managing Visitor Safety in the Historic Built Environment: principles and practice

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 The Practical Guide to Corporate Social Responsibility: Do the Right Thing

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 Legal ruling could threaten companies’ right to keep ‘privileged’ documents from enforcers

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The Health and Safety at Work Act provides an exemption under s 20(8) for companies producing privileged documentation, which prevents regulators from accessing internal documents such as interview records when they are prepared for the purpose of instructing legal representatives.
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 2017 salary survey

Monday 22nd May 2017
The survey sampleThe survey was open online to both IOSH members and non-members between 14 March and 14 April and advertised in IOSH Magazine’s twice weekly e-newsletter. The poll drew 2,310 useable responses, 95.5% of them from IOSH members.As Figure 1 (below) shows, a substantial majority of respondents (90.5%) were based in the UK, with the remainder mainly in continental Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, Africa and the Republic of Ireland.
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 US workplace deaths plateau

Tuesday 9th May 2017
The 2017 edition of Death on the Job: the toll of neglect showed that 4,836 people died at work in 2015, a rate of 3.4 per 100,000 workers. This rate is identical to 2014 and slightly higher than the rate of 3.3 recorded in 2013, when 4,585 people died. The rate for 2015 was the same as the five-year annual average. However, over the last ten years the fatality rate has almost halved (4.2 in 2006) as the number of work deaths decreased by just under 1,000.
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 DHL auditor crushed by 770 kg equipment load at JCB HQ

Monday 8th May 2017
An electric tug was towing the trolley through the yard at JCB’s headquarters in Rochester, Staffordshire on 16 October 2013. At the same time, a DHL employee was auditing incoming deliveries nearby.Stafford Crown Court was told that the trolley fell on its side and struck the worker, pinning him to a stillage. He sustained fractures and internal injuries.  The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) investigation found there was no system to segregate vehicles operating the warehouse from both DHL and JCB workers who were on foot.
Open-access content
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