Digital Extra Property Management Select O
ver the summer we have seen unfold, amongst other things, a new Government setting its stall out on our future and the ongoing efforts of an oil company to
remediate what has become a major disaster. Both in no small part though have health and safety as a core thread. The former is not only through the fiscal, our economic health, but also in the appointment of Lord Young to lead a Whitehall-wide review of our health and safety law and practice. The latter because, fundamentally it was the failure of piece of safety equipment that ultimately led to millions of gallons of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico. Both are in the public domain, both
have significant monetary as well as safety implications and both have and will undoubtedly affect the public relations standing of the relative organisations.
Measure for measure The regulatory has had competition however. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting has seen a growth in health and safety which now amounts to approximately 40% of content across the 3100 reports
CorporateRegister.com assessed for 2008. Over the years our fatal injury statistics
have fallen and our record against our European neighbours, and indeed globally, has become one of the best. Despite this success, the beeches and cases section of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website is littered with organisations who have failed to effectively manage and organise the obligations placed upon them.
Much ado about something
Interestingly recent headline fines for workplace fatalities, a legionella outbreak or repeated fires have cost companies around £300,000 each. At 10% profitability, if you can muster that currently, the implications of such a fine are an increase in turnover of £3,000,000, just to stand still.
There has also been the use in a number of prosecutions of Section 37(i) of the HSWA by virtue of Section… This is where an individual as well as, or indeed instead of, the organisation can be found liable. The message is failure to nominate individual responsibility is no protection if something goes wrong.
60 l Property Management Select l july/august 2010 l
www.pm-select.co.uk
The taming of the shrew Good health and safety is like good sustainability it should be a thread running through the organisation, not a bolt on to it. Similarly, compliance is a baseline to be worked from, not aspired to. In assessing your health and safety consider:
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