When blame culture fogs the real issue

The secretary of Midland Construction Safety Group, Roy Perkins reveals why blame culture is simply cover up for deeper issues  

With over 40 years experience within the health and safety industry, safety practitioner Roy Perkins, discusses how blame culture and questionable risk assessments have become endemic within the construction industry… 

It seems that Risk Assessment is becoming prolific within the construction industry – but for every decent risk assessment out there I’m confident of finding another 100 that are simply not worth reading. 

A risk assessment was once something done as a matter of routine by good managers, supervisors and operatives when planning work. They created no special forms and mostly communicated verbally.  

“… good managers, supervisors and operatives are frustrated by unnecessary paperwork… On the other hand, people with no self-motivation produce regurgitated RA tables of dubious origin, and rest on their laurels believing they have complied with their H&S duties.” 

But now everybody in the supply chain is required to undertake one. Clients demand them from their principal contractors who in turn demand them from their contractors. Some even get their operatives to write them in the belief that safety will be improved. I question if most of these people are sufficiently informed on the work activity to evaluate the risk assessment in the first place let alone the material issue of site conditions that prevail at the time! 

So where is the HSE in all of this? 

Well, in my experience, they’re conspicuous by their absence. 

The Management of Health and Safety at Work ACOP states in paragraph 9: 

“All employers should carry out a systematic general examination of the effect of their undertaking, their work activities and the condition of the premises. Those who employ five or more employees should record the significant findings of that risk assessment.” 

This results in acceptance by some clients and not others which in turn invites added pages to cater for missing information, culminating in a document the size of Encyclopedia Britannica (for those old enough to remember). Only in recent times have the HSE published guidance on what they suggest might be appropriate, but nobody seems to be listening. 

David Cameron wants to “kill off safety culture” and he’s right in that something needs to be done. The problem though is how to stop the rot. 

Good risk assessment should be holistic and pragmatic so you can see the bigger picture beyond the seemingly obvious which simply become easy targets for blame.