Workplace Law Magazine is available only to Premium Members of the Workplace Law Network. Produced 10 times each year, it is distributed in hard copy format in the first week of the month, and is also available online.
Euromillions
It is often said that the Euromillions lottery draw is easier to win than the National Lottery – but this month we are all winners thanks to the great European health and safety giveaway, which begins this October with European Week for Safety and Health at Work.
Courtesy of the EU, health and safety managers now have a wealth of resources available at the click of the button to help them carry out risk assessments - the theme of the campaign both this year and next.
Many of the materials are available in 22 different languages, meaning staff whose first language isn’t English can learn about the risk assessment process in the same level of detail as the rest of the staff.
Risk management is nothing new – as most of the people interviewed for this edition of the magazine said, we start practising risk assessment as children working out the dangers associated with things like crossing the road – but the process has become one which is often mocked or misunderstood, despite it being a legal requirement in work activities.
Hardly a day goes by without the newspapers lambasting some over-enthusiastic and under-prepared manager that has chosen to ban something stupid in the name of risk management. Flip-flops, trampolines, sports days...you name it and it will have been banned somewhere, causing employee retaliation in the form of ‘naming and shaming’ in the press. So, for this issue of the magazine, we've tried to bring risk management back to a sensible level.
In this issue...
Latest
06 Legal calendar
Key legislative dates taking place in October and November.
10 Case law
- Worker falls in computer server room - who is to blame?
- Nightclub failed to risk assess use of candles
Comment
07 Risk assessment – an important requirement
Health and safety can’t just be common sense, says Craig Stuart.
09 What’s in a name?
‘Naming and shaming’ seems to have found its home in our penal system of the 21st century, says David Sharp.
Focus
12 Health and safety free for all: European Week for Safety and Health at Work
October sees the ninth annual European Week for Safety and Health at Work – the time when employers across the continent should be shouldering arms in their delivering good health and safety practice. So what does the week involve? What’s in it for you? And don’t we know all there is to know about risk assessment already…?
16 Conkering safety fears
The World Conker Championships takes place in the village of Ashton each autumn and attracts hundreds of competitors from all over the world – and has done since it was started in the village pub in 1965. More recently, over-zealous health and safety has been blamed for taking the fun out of the conkers. But is this really the case? Claire Fuller spoke to Ashton Conker Club and IOSH to see how a conker tournament is risk assessed.
20 The other new president
Nattasha Freeman is set to become the new president of IOSH in November. Here she spoke to Claire Fuller about her plans for the year – and IOSH’s plans to keep on campaigning for better understanding of risk management...
Challenge
22 Danger man
Mick Dawson was a geography graduate who liked the sound of working in environmental consultancy. Some 20 years later he is the Practice Manager of the asbestos unit at consultants Bureau Veritas. David Sharp traces his hazardous journey.
Network
19 Hard hats: does colour matter?
Workplace Law Network recently reported that Network Rail had relocated construction workers away from the railway tracks because they were wearing the wrong colour hard hats, thus failing to meet basic safety requirements. Here is what members had to say about the story...
24 The regulated, the regulator and the workforce: health and safety in the 21st century
Judith Hackitt, Chair of the HSE, chose the National Safety Symposium to give an address on how to make health and safety fit for the 21st century. Here is what she had to say...
26 Clinic
Workplace Law members ask the experts for advice on risk management in the workplace.
Technical
28 Legal update
In-depth technical guidance on: risk assessment and sex discrimination; risk assessing an event away from the workplace; and common advice in fire risk management.
The data
32 This month’s statistics
Key figures and information on health and safety and employment law.
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