RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

September 20, 2005
MAKING A CASE FOR “SENSIBLE SAFETY” IN SCOTLAND

“Sensible safety” will be promoted at the RoSPA Scotland Safety and Health at Work Congress next week.

Concerns over highly publicised cases which have led to criticism of the health and safety community will be addressed at the conference, sponsored by National Semiconductor, at the Glasgow Hilton Hotel on Wednesday and Thursday, September 28 and 29.

Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “Most safety decision making is fairly well balanced, but there have been a few instances where people seem to have got things wrong.

“These cases are tending to give much-needed safety measures a bad name and so we need to do more to put things into perspective.

“Things should not be banned just because an accident could happen. People need to take into account what could go wrong in an activity and weigh up if the risks are tolerable and whether they have got the balance right between the level of risk and the cost of precautions.

“Stopping children from playing conkers in school or ordering hanging baskets to be taken down in case they fall on someone’s head might be considered too heavy-handed a response unless there are exceptional individual circumstances.”

The subject will be tackled by Stewart Campbell, Health and Safety Executive Director Scotland, on Wednesday (Sept 28).

The conference - Raising Standards, Embedding Excellence – will be opened by Allan Wilson, Scotland’s Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, whose address will be “towards a healthier and safer Scotland”.

Other first-day speakers include: Graeme Dalziel, Chief Executive of Dunfermline Building Society, on developing safety influence; and Harry Frew, Scottish Regional Secretary of UCATT and Richard Thorpe, Projects Director MACE, on partnerships.

The second day of the conference will deal with promoting healthier working lives. Contributors include: Tom Scholes, Chief Executive of Renfrewshire Council, looking at absence management; Chiara Amati, occupational psychologist at Edinburgh’s Keil Centre, talking about tackling stress; and Robert Atkinson, Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives, addressing what works in health promotion.