Compensation Nation to come to an End?

looks like all that red tape created under Labour will be slashed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10304770.stm

You mean freedom for companies to kill their employees and customers?

I bet nothing significant is repealed as a result of that anyway. A simple piece of populist daily wailism

A huge amount of what is blamed on H&S legislation is nothing of the sort and the majority is made up by the papers

it's not the law that is at fault, it's the idiot paranoid jobsworths who implement it and the idiot gluttons who pervert it.

the best way to end the compensation nation is to create a populace who don't believe that their misfortune and misadventure should somehow be turned into financial gain at the loss of others and that they are owed a living by others without effort on their own part.

simples?

i think not

Crikey. Sounds a bit wrong headed to me. H&S certainly isn't applied evenly across the board. A lot of private firms still skimp a bit, whilst a lot of public sector places go overboard. And of course, a lot more places use it it in the same way as the data protection act is used – a convenient way of saying "No, please get stuffed".

The man leading the study, Lord Young, has told the BBC he wants advertisements for personal injury claims firms to be banned.

This will reduce the number of stupid laws enormously, at a stroke. 🙄

If they were serious about this, they would start with a review of the law of negligence, not with a ban on advertising related to seeking redress under the law. Unimpressive.

Good idea, but it will be quite hard to get people to be responsible for their own actions / misfortunes.

H&S has almost nothing to do with children not being allowed to play conkers, or personal accident claims or anything else. Those are all about a near total inability to understand what risk is, and a desire to make as much money out of some sucker somewhere else as possible.
Oh, and insurance companies.

I don't see this as affecting the workplace per se – more general society, like the idea of banning school sports day under H&S rules (yes TJ before you get on your horse I know it should happen, but it does, so just leave it)

As a concrete example: I'm currently discussing with the local council why they flattened a local jump spot. "they were too tall so we had to flatten them under health and safety rules" is not a good enough answer sorry. That's NOT what H&S is about, and if this chappie can clear up that kind of misunderstanding then more power to him

AP / NBT – those two you mention are classics – the "conkers only with safety glasses" was a spoof done by a teacher to see if the papers would bite. They did.

No sports day has been banned for H&S reasons – a myth.

Many of these myths exist. They remain myths – made worse by jobsworths using H&S as an excuse as nbt states

It started to go wrong when that American woman spilt her hot cup of Maccy D coffee on her lap and was told she should sue.

As nbt points out, NOTHING to do with why H & S was created

f-ck me sideways! Who is advising Cameron? The examples he's given are bollocks and have nothing to do with h & s law or good practice.

Lord Young, whose review is expected to report back over the summer, told the BBC health and safety was very important but had been made a "joke" because it had been extended into areas that "frankly are not dangerous".

yet the layer pointed out that

"People can't claim compensation unless they have been injured because someone else is at fault.

I worry about that
Seems like the word review has changed since I was at school the as he seems to have reached a conclusion rather than be evaluating the evidence. Agree load of Dail Wail knee jerk nonsense that will lead to no new legislation whatsoever.

"they were too tall so we had to flatten them under health and safety rules"

ah this was probably done under 'the control of quite high ramps that look a bit dangerous regulations 1990'

Hmmmm I was hoping to get a new Zaskar.

One of my clients is amongst the most risk averse organisations in Europe. In order to satsify them on the work that we do, we quite often do calculations as to the likelihood of "something occuring", its likely outcome, the likely cost of that outcome and the cost of doing something beforehand to reduce that risk to ALARP. It can be quite interesting to see how people perceive risks…

Highclimber – can you point to any H&S red tape created by labour? Myself I can't think of any H&S legislation enacted in the last 13 years

Its not H and S, that screws companies its the compensation culture,and all the costs that are put onto the claim.

Sadly a lot of firms make up trumped up rules just so they may not be sued by victims, so they put up signs wet floor, wet paint etc, steep drop etc.

There is also the self proclaimed H and S proffesional jobsworth who puts the fear of god into mangement,and by thus doing so, promotes his/her worth to the company, theyre affraid to go against him/her and obey his every comand,like painting so called hazards yellow, white lines ,loads of signs ,etc etc

I never said created BY Labour, I said Created UNDER Labour.

they were too tall so we had to flatten them under health and safety rules

well thye have eliminated the risk to be fair
I sued to educational visits for council in the county where the treacher got prosecuted for manslaughter.
The length of these forms and the risks that had to be assessed was ridiculous but we did hav eparents try to sue.
Once for a child catching a cold as they went Gorge walking in winter – they offered to settle for 20 K out of court foir duress. I suggested they had been smoking too much of a certain product at a minuted meeting they did use a solicitor for a bit but di dgive up.

It is a bit of a chicken and and egg situation companies get sued so they bevome very adverse to even minimal risk and use H & S as an excuse to say we dont want to risk being sued.

Perhaps somebody can explain why railway and tube platforms dont need signs to say steep drop, of at least 3 foot plus,or that car drivers dont need to be trained and rtested by their companies to be proved competent at driving as do any other industrial machine driver, eg trains, forklifts, cranes, dumpers etc.

I remember when an accident was an accident and not an excuse for some scumbag to bleed the system dry, bring on the end of the compensation culture!!

ALARP is a waste of time as a concept unless you intend to have any residual risk stand – particularly if you are trying to quantitatively assess risk.
.
Reducing H&S legislation is not the answer – requiring the competent application of it is

TJ,

AP / NBT – those two you mention are classics – the "conkers only with safety glasses" was a spoof done by a teacher to see if the papers would bite. They did.

Are you sure?
Yo-yo's were banned at our school ('99 ish was it?)
Concers were banned, but that was becasue us enterprising country kids were making a killing (well enough to buy a mars bar and the bus fare home) selling concers to the city kids and may have been a case of H&S being used as an escuse).

Highclimber – can you point to any H&S red tape created by labour? Myself I can't think of any H&S legislation enacted in the last 13 years

Ironically, the The Work at Height Regulations 2005:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20050735.htm

😀

Problem isn't the legislation, its the over zealous application of the legislation by people who have no idea of how to perform a proper risk analysis so end up coming out with silly rules like "nobody is allowed to use a bicycle at work without first undergoing a training course"

Perhaps somebody can explain why …..or that car drivers dont need to be trained and rtested by their companies to be proved competent at driving as do any other industrial machine driver, eg trains, forklifts, cranes, dumpers etc.

Some firms do. We require a copy of drivers licence (as proof of competence at time of test), and then all staff required to drive on business have to complete an online risk assesment. All those scoring highly – young, inexperienced, high mileage, have to complete a RoSPA defensive driving course.

MAny of our clients require anyone visiting their sites to have taken defensive driver training

given your spelling you sure you went to school? 😉
Given my typo rate high irony content

Making companies pay for problems they create actually promotes economic efficiency. Goes for both environmental problems and personal injury.

nobody is allowed to use a bicycle at work without first undergoing a training course"

I did a mtb course with kids[yoof Work] as one activity [ round rivvy reservoir] and the company would not let me take my own bike for H & S reasons. The piece of cr@p they tried to give me was beyond a joke and I refused to ride it and signed a disclaimer as I had too for my won helmet, shoes and gloves. All the kids thought my bike was rubbish as it had no gears.

"You mean freedom for companies to kill their (employees and) customers?"

genius – what a business plan. bast*rd customers. must get my employees on the case immediately

😉

Highclimber – can you point to any H&S red tape created by labour? Myself I can't think of any H&S legislation enacted in the last 13 years

Primary legislation no (apart from H&S offences act 2008, but secondary legislation yes – lots

http://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/statinstruments.htm – order by year.

All the kids thought my bike was rubbish as it had no gears.

They were right, mind 😉

All the kids thought my bike was rubbish as it had no gears

ah the insight of youth 🙂

I've recently experienced H&S at work in another country.

The situation was this:

I was taking down a 10M aluminium scaffolding tower and a member of the hotel staff told me that if the H&S manager saw me i'd be stopped and banned from site unless i wore safety gear. Now, there is no point on a scaff tower rated for a fall arrest device to be attached too and if the tower falls over, the last thing i want to be attached to is the tower itself. A hard hat is to prevent injury from falling objects or striking your head on obstructions (which don't occur unless you are wearing a hard hat as they obscure your view!), neither of these things were realistically going to occur in the given situation.

I explained the above to the chap but he was insistent so down i came, donned safety gear and then continued with work wearing equipment that far from protecting me, hindered my movement and made me sweat even more!

At the end of the night a local labourer/rigger fell from the top of a set of ladders (probably 25ft from his head to the floor) striking his face on a case on the way down, he was knocked out and convulsing and there was a fair amount of claret about the place (luckily he was ok in the end).

If he'd been wearing a harness clipped on to the ladders (as required by the local H&S legislation) he'd have bought the ladders, 90ft of 6M high black cloth with associated scaff and rigging and 40ft of wooden set panels down with him and a helmet would have done nothing to prevent neck/back injury from the fall. The police attended and it all got a bit serious, the supervisor (and actually the only bloke in the room with a 'licence' to use ladders) was carted off to the police station.

He fell from the ladders because he was an idiot, he was stood on the top wrung of over extended ladders un-clipping a long and heavy cable run that when he released pulled him off to the side, it wouldn't have taken much common sense to see that was likely or indeed inevitable.

It left me pondering my own safety at height especially as i had to complete the rest of the local contractors work myself using borrowed safety gear whilst several policemen* watched.

There are places in this country where the (our) legislation is implemented with just as little consideration for the actual processes being undertaken but had the hotel/rigging supervisor/labourer stuck to the letter of the law or applied more common sense then he'd not have been up ladders in the first place.

So a double edged sword and not a problem easily solved, certainly not by banning adverts for 'no win no fee' set-ups.

probably a rambling post but it's something that's been nagging me all week and let's face it, how many of you have jobs which actually present dangerous and life threatening situations regularly, i'm talking working with electricity and at height here, not scalding yourself on a latte.

*proper scary policemen where you can have your hands chopped off for looking at a woman a bit 'funny'

Just remembered where i live, block of appartments,

we are not allowed to feed the birds,

not allowed to have door mats,incase somebody trips over them,

must park within all bays and no where else,

All health and Safety related.

If you were building a whole new railway now you'd use platform edge doors to reduce the hazard of both the 900mm drop to the rail and the big heavy train coming along that rail. However, they're inordinately expensive and by having a healthy understanding of risk and the likelihood of that hazard occuring you can put remediation in place without spending an enormous amount of money – to reduce the risk to As Low As Reasonably Practicable.

i should have see that coming 😳

All health and Safety related.

Or more accurately implemented using H&S as an excuse…

aP – Member
If you were building a whole new railway now you'd use platform edge doors to reduce the hazard of both the 900mm drop to the rail and the big heavy train coming along that rail. However, they're inordinately expensive and by having a healthy understanding of risk and the likelihood of that hazard occuring you can put remediation in place without spending an enormous amount of money – to reduce the risk to As Low As Reasonably Practicable.
Posted 1 minute ago # Report-Post

Like on the Jubillee line to stop londoners jumping infront of the trains

I've recently experienced H&S at work in another country.

Good point. Whenever I see any programme from the US with people doing manual work, I'm agog. The entire country seems to work with a level of safety that only mad old farmers seem to think is OK here.

i've also nearly knocked myself out slipping on a wet floor on a hotel in a foreign country, the bloke was mopping the floor right in front of me.

my first thought on sitting up was 'where was the sign'

my second thought was 'you're a ****'