Your Opinions If You Please...

[Technician]

I have been asked to examine and review a power point

presentation and I have also been asked for my views.

I have found the following astonishing statements on

Risk assessments.

They must be gender sensitive.

They must establish establish that gender/race/age/equality

policies are in place.

They must encourage dignity in the workplace.

Before any of you ask I have already looked at the NEBOSH

bible (Hughes-Ferrett) and I have already formed my

opinions.

May I please have yours?

If this sort of garbage gets out there is no telling where it will

end.

 

[NozSpark]

To me it sounds like the PC & equality brigades are .... dunno :Brian

Why do they need to highlight these things,, surely we've moved on by now,,, to me this clap trap just feeds the hate

 

[M107]

What a load of carp, surely if equality is to be adhered to then one risk assessment for all no matter what the gender would suffice.

 

[ProDave]

^^

What he says.

Don't mention gender, age,. race or colour, then your risk assessment covers everybody without discrimination.

I'm so glad as a sole trader I don't have to bother with all that carp.

 

[Technician]

It gets better and it's POETS day.

Risk assessments are to identify hazards

and risks by considering the nature of the

hazard and the liklihood of an accident or injury

resulting from the hazard.

You might be included in risk assessments because

your age and inexperience increases the risk of

accident and injury.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

When working at private domestic dwellings I do think an age consideration has to be made..

e.g.  could be young children in a property where you are working...

and sometimes mom or dad don't always notice that little toddler is intrigued by your tool box, stepladders or cable!!!

Same as where family pets are running around...

Possibly similar increased risks with the elderly.. trip over leads etc...

But its still just a bit of common sense to keep your gear out of everyones way!! 

Guinness

cant think of anywhere else that I would think age is an issue..

 

[kerching]

Try doing a risk assessment for a Diving Course that has an average depth of over 50 m

what do you see as a risk?..............DROWNING

how will you reduce/ negate this risk?...........DON'T DIVE,   go to pub

End  of risk assessment

 

[roys]

As mentioned above, if it is not applicable to the job then why mention it?.

On one of the risk assessments I was involved in I was asked 'what is the worse that could happen?' I said 'I could trip the entire site power' hey presto I did trip the plant. Goodinvestigation meeting meeting afterwords when it was pointed out what the RA said

 

[Evans Electric]

Ah  Happy days !!   When we were NICEIC contractors we had customers like  NHS,  Police . Proation Service, Barclays Bank,   Aston University etc  But the one with all the PC and equality crap was B,ham City Council .

I wish I'd kept this.

Towards the end of the spec. for a school job it stated that one third  of our workforce must be selected from certain areas of Birmingham....the following page shows a map of said areas ,,,,shaded in hatching.   These were areas populated by 90%  non indiginous Brummies , most of whom don't relish working for a living anyway ...  allegedly...   This used to apply to major building contractors who couldn't comply as they used specialist trades , not all from Birmingham anyway .

My partner said  "What do we do about this?"         My sugestion was as a smallish job , only put two guys on it , you can't have a third of 2 men  or there were actually two of us who grew up in these areas before they ....erm...changed....

It was I believe , dropped when Mrs Thatcher informed them that it was totally illegal and ignored the rights of cititzens who didn't come from those areas .

This was a council that had a section that ensured that every section had the correct ethnic mix within it  , I was told.

 

[Technician]

All interesting observations BUT......

The Nebosh training manual &

the wonderful book from Hughes/

Ferret make absolutely no mention

of Equality & Diversity in ANY of the

sections on this subject.

Even in the model and sample documents,

there is no reference to any of the points

in this erroneous power point presentation.

Equality & Diversity do not even appear

in the index.

Time was that when this sort of thing was

being done in the name of several people

such a document would be put up for peer

review.  That is how other worthies do it.

People who write articles for journals and

magazines with a reputation to protect will

insist on this if they have any sense.

 

[binky]

there are some gender specific issues involving women and being pregnant and certain chemicals, can't think what they are now. But ethnicity has sod all to do with H&S that I can think of, other than long beards and turbans may not mix well with rotating machinery. :^O

 

[Technician]

That is a good point Binky;  the primary requirement is that

the Risk Assessment document has to be suitable for the

individual and sufficient to the task to be performed. The

pointless insistance, laid on thick in the work I have been

asked to review detracts from and obscures the central

intent of the document.

 

[binky]

precisely, and no ham sandwichs whilst working in the synagog :slap

i suppose offending people could be considered a risk....