Make safety part of 'mainstream management training'

Speaking at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) conference in Telford today, health and safety minister Lord McKenzie said he believed education was crucial to overcoming poor safety management in general.

He said it was essential that all organisations understood that health and safety was not about "over the top risk assessments or mountains of paperwork", and that the key to preventing excessively risk averse decisions was wider knowledge of the subject.

"We are trying to get a greater appreciation of the need to manage health and safety by other professions and managers," he said.

"We are trying to get it into their degrees or continuing professional development. We need to make sure health and safety is integrated as part of mainstream management training."

Lord McKenzie also announced at the conference that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was to receive £724 million in funding over the next three years. He described the funds as "a very good outcome" and that they reflected "the importance the Government placed on health and safety".

In addition, he confirmed that the merger of the HSE and Health and Safety Commission (HSC) was expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

'No burden'

Meanwhile, IOSH president Ray Hurst used his platform at the conference to attack businesses that claimed health and safety was a "burden".

"It seems to me that some employers still expect that health and safety will just happen," he told delegates. "Once they recognise it won't, some of them then think it's all just an unnecessary burden.

"They need to understand that the actual requirements aren't that onerous or as portrayed in the 'elf and safety' stories they may read, and that the benefits are more than worth the effort."

He added: "I firmly believe health and safety isn't something that's problematic, you just have to get the competent health and safety advice you need to find appropriate answers. Most of the time, those answers aren't complicated or difficult."

He went on to say that the profession needed to "continue in its fight" for better public perception, for as long as "crazy myths" about health and safety persisted in the media.

"IOSH is going to continue to counter and debunk these stories with the true health and safety message about balanced solutions to real risks, and hit back at the snipers and the nay-sayers - because health and safety is too important to be dismissed in this way," said Mr Hurst.