Panorama - may contain nuts

The Panorama program approached the subject of health and safety exactly like any member of the public. They resent being told what to do, don't like well paid consultants, will not countenance any risk for their own loved ones but are happy to accept significant personal risk if the rewards are there, feel someone should always be blamed for any failure, hate bureaucracy but demand accounatbility, think that government agencies are incompetent and do not like beauty spots or burial places for their loved ones desecrated. All of these things sound like "common sense" but are actually complex and interdependent issues and some must always be sacrificed for others. The primary tool is good risk assessment (and the program did point this out and should be credited for that at least). The National Trust got it right and Bassetlaw got it wrong. The greater the risk, the greater the need for rigour and intelligence in risk assessment. Noise is never fatal so the control measures must be proportionate but it is complex - sound not just a level on a db meter. You can't do sound level monitoring on an iphone and the noise regs when properly applied using a proper judgement of risk should never interfere with a cellists interpretation of Elgar. That there are serious uncontrolled risks on construction sites up and down the country going begging for a good H&S intervention whilst our artists are being assailed by over fussy regulation is a travesty and they are right to point this out. As professionals we need to avoid jerking our knee every time an investigation uses a slightly mickeytaking style to address genuine concerns about how much regulation and enforcement is enough.The fear of getting sued is massively overstated and the threat of it allows all sorts of busybodying disguised as H&S. This is giving the whole profession a bad name and providing ammunition for our detractors. It's some of the professionals that need training first; training to get out of the restrictive uptight and hidebound mindset and to explouit deregulation rather than beg for proscription and invent it where it's lacking (guidance is only guidance, it's ACOPs that have less wiggle room). Training to open up their creative processes in finding novel solutions to allow the right amount of risk; to faciltate, as one judge put it "well thought through risk taking" . Training to understand that some people follow rules and some don't, to find out why, and to properly decide where different control measures are needed for each circumstance. We are getting better all the time I think and we're only really being undermined by a handful of instances of poor judgement. But we must be aware that every single one is food for lazy journalists. A bit of self criticism in the business of H&S wouldn't go amiss. Just because we're criticised collectively for one individuals barmy misreading of a reg or cotton wool control measure doesn't mean we should't examine our solutions sometimes and ask ouselves if we really took all our possible stakeholders into account when we chose them