consultation – Page 65 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The future of the School of Risk & Safety Science

It was good to hear the President of the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA), Barry Silburn on the radio on 7 December 2009. The SIA has traditionally been very hesitant about going public on safety issues but clearly the potential disappearance of the School of Risk & Safety Science from the University of New South Wales is important to the SIA.

The closure of this school seems absurd, particularly, when the fact of its profitability is shown.

The university’s decision appears wrong and, from the evidence of the radio interview, it seems that the decision has occurred recently. Dropping a school, regardless of the prominence claimed by the SIA, which has a problem with prominence of its own, is a harsh decision if there has not already been a consultative process or a strategic program for improvement and increased relevance.

It is not as if the school does not have access to top talent. Names familiar to Australian OHS professionals, researchers and regulators include

Professor Chris Winder

Dr Anne Wyatt

Dr Jean Cross

Michael Tooma

In the University of New South Wales’ Australian School of Business, there are several other prominent OHS academics. Most familiar to SafetyAtWorkBlog are

Professor Michael Quinlan

Professor Stephen Frenkel

Barry Silburn (a video of Barry Silburn talking about the SIA is available online) accuses the University of New South Wales of sacrificing the safety profession for short-term gain:

“They’re not looking at the overall picture of OHS within Australia they’re looking at very short-term money considerations on their courses that they’re conducting within the university”.

This seems an odd accusation when compared with the fact that the school has made a profit two years running.

It seems to SafetyAtWorkBlog that the limitations of the University’s review are clear in the statement of Deputy Vice Chancellor, Richard Henry:

We had an external review of the Faculty of Science by a committee of internationally respected scientists and their recommendations to the university were that the Faculty of Science should concentrate on its strengths; areas such as maths, physics, chemistry, psychology, biology.

The university wants to focus on pure science rather than applied science after a review undertaken by “a committee of internationally respected scientists”. HMMMM?

OHS academics are often less dependent on government funding than other schools and departments because the skills and knowledge can be more readily applied in a practical way and they live closer to the economic realities of business and workplace safety.

Silburn’s accusations of greed are too narrow. The safety profession can continue without the School of Risk & Safety Science. There are many sources of OHS graduates still in Australia and, from the activity of the University of Queensland, these opportunities are increasing.

It seems that the university may have been too narrow in its selection of the review panel for the Faculty of Science. But if we take the panel’s recommendations seriously, Richard Henry does not see the School of Risk & Safety Sciences as fitting in the Faculty of Science. Surely it could fit in the university’s School of Organisation and Management. Going from this School’s profile in the website:

“The School of Organisation and Management is a multi-disciplinary unit comprising 32 full-time academics. Our mission in the School of Organisation and Management (O&M) is to conduct high quality applied research and to prepare students for employment in diverse organisational settings. Our main areas of research and teaching include: Organisational Behaviour, International Business, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations, and social and psychological aspects of Management.”

Anne Wyatt researches the psychosocial issue of workplace bullying. Chris Winder researches occupational toxicology and his most recent academic paper is “Managing hazards in the workplace using organisational safety management systems: A safe place, safe person, safe systems approach.”

If the University of New South Wales cannot see the continuing relevance of its profitable School of Risk & Safety Science, it should perhaps get examined at its own School of Optometry and Vision Science.

Kevin Jones

The School of Organisation and Management is a multi-disciplinary unit comprising 32 full-time academics. Our mission in the School of Organisation and Management (O&M) is to conduct high quality applied research and to prepare students for employment in diverse organisational settings. Our main areas of research and teaching include: Organisational Behaviour, International Business, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations, and social and psychological aspects of Management.

OHS law and safety management

Regular readers will be aware that SafetyAtWorkBlog holds the belief that OHS legislation is not the same as managing workplace safety. Safety can be managed without recourse to law (this is what many mean when they say that “safety is just common sense”) but legislation provides some parameters in which that management occurs.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has issued a call for tougher OHS laws and used workplace fatality statistics as the basis. Tying the two issues together serves a political purpose but avoids the fact that a range of economic, political, social and even environmental issues can affect how workplaces manage safety.

The media statement issued on 11 December 2009 says:

“A sharp rise in work-related fatalities last year shows that proposed new workplace health and safety laws need to be strengthened, not watered down, say unions.

There were 177 fatal injuries in workplaces in 2008-9, according to newly released statistics from the national regulatory body, Safe Work Australia. This is an 18% increase from the previous year…. [hyperlink added]

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the increase in fatalities was disturbing at a time when proposed changes to Australian workplace safety laws would result in a weakening of protections and rights.

“A double-digit increase in workplace fatalities in one year is shocking,” Mr Lawrence said. “Each of these victims is someone’s partner, parent, son, daughter or friend. The Federal, state and territory governments will make significant decisions about new national health and safety laws today. If any evidence was needed that requirements for employers to provide a safe workplace need to be toughened, this is it. We urge the federal and state governments to make workers’ safety their highest priority.”

The ACTU is doing what it should by serving the needs of its members but the push for union prosecutions of OHS breaches is only one part of its social charter. The aim of improving safety can be best achieved by motivating union members and establishing a dialogue with the general community, which includes business, small and large.

Is the day far off when we may see joint statements from unions and employer groups on the issue of workplace safety? Can politics be put aside for the benefit of improving safety? Comments welcome.

Kevin Jones

“Best Practice…First Aid”? – not sure

First aid is one of the most neglected areas of workplace health and safety but, when required , vital. The neglect comes from it rarely being integrated into the safety management system and on relying of the advice from first aid training and equipment suppliers. “Why shouldn’t it be relied on? They’re the experts.”

In a previous career I worked for a first aid equipment and training provider in various roles. A major task was to visit workplaces and assist them in determining their first aid needs. Over the years that I undertook this role I came to the general conclusion that first aid kits were almost always over stocked in comparison to what was needed. (Assessing the first aid needs of 28 McDonalds restaurants in 2 days was fun, at first)

In relation to first training, most companies had insufficient first aiders and those they had were trained fair beyond the needs of their workplaces.

Granted most of these workplaces were not high risk organisations or in isolated locations, mostly they were in urbanised areas. But it was also this fact that generated most of the oversupply of equipment.

I was reminded of my many years in that role in the 1990s when SafeWork SA announced the release of its “Approved Code of Practice for First Aid”. (The Code will be available on the SafeWork SA website in a couple of days, and I will review it then) This Code comes into effect on 10 December 2010 which means a busy 12 months for most South Australian OHS professionals.

According to SafeWork SA’s media statement, the new Code:

provides a more contemporary and best-practice approach to first aid

gives workplaces more flexibility to tailor their first aid arrangements to suit their type of business

better aligns South Australia with provisions interstate.

SafeWork SA’s Executive Director, Michele Patterson, says

“An extensive two-year consultation by SafeWork SA revealed that existing workplace first aid kits were often too big, not relevant to the individual workplace needs, and resulted in considerable wastage……”Under the new Code, first aid kits can be smaller, will cover more types of injuries and should reduce wastage.”

The capacity for tailoring first aid kits to the needs of the workplace has been allowed in Victoria for almost twenty years. New packaging and configurations were designed by suppliers, – cloth pouches, wall-mounted plastic boxes, back packs… But the contents and packaging was determined in relation to the manufacturers costs, more than the needs of the client.

Here is my first aid kit. A pair of disposable gloves, a disposable resuscitation faceshield, a ziplock bag to keep them in and a mobile phone. Everything else should be determined by need.

If you don’t remember that first aid is “emergency medical treatment”, you will be ripped off by equipment providers.

Of course it is possible to provide first aid without even this amount of equipment. The above package is purely personal protective equipment to stop infectious liquid passing between the injured and the first aider. There are plenty of cases of people who have no access to this PPE still saving lives.

Patterson says that a benefit of the Code is that it brings South Australia’s first aid training levels up to the standards of the other States. This is relevant for some workplaces but most will wait to see what the national OHS harmonisation process produces and then apply that.

But Patterson says something that holds more wisdom than she expected.

“The more people trained in basic first aid who may be able to keep a person alive until an ambulance arrives – the safer both our workplace and communities will be.”

Here is the core of first aid. The skills are basic, usually stop the bleeding and keep someone breathing. I used to refer to this as “plug them and puff them”. If a first aider achieves these two aims on an injured person until an ambulance arrives, they are fulfilling their tasks.

The other vital element is “until an ambulance arrives”. Most workplaces are in urbanised locations with good emergency response. Victoria has a targeted ambulance response time of around 15 minutes and over the last couple of decades the ambulance service has been supplemented by emergency medical services from the fire brigade.

Too many workplace first aid courses teach people how to immobilise a broken leg. In most circumstances, a broken leg will be treated by ambulance officers. Only yesterday a high school student attending an end-of-school function broke their nose. The supervising teacher did the correct action and called an ambulance. I am sure the boy’s parents also supported the decision.

Companies may consider the skills gained from a five-day first aid training course to be worthwhile for those employees who have children or bushwalk but in relation to workplace first aid, they were overtrained. First aid courses have been trimmed from the standard workplace first aid course of fifteen years ago but as long as one signs up to an off-the-shelf training course, there will be training elements that are not required.

The last nugget of wisdom from Michele Patterson’s statement above is that the more people trained the better. Imagine if everyone on one office floor were training in basic first aid. There would always be a first aider present in the workplace, regardless of the hours of work. No juggling of this level first aider and that level, or training additional people to cover the absences of the designated first aiders. The emergency first aid response would the fastest possible and therefore the survival rate would be the best achievable.

Teach everyone in the workplace to “plug them and puff them” and you will be looking after your own health too. For if you keel over and stop breathing, you will have at least one first aider at your side within a minute. More likely you’ll have more than one and two-person CPR is very effective. In this circumstance “reasonably practicable” may increase the level of first aid response rather than diminish OHS standards as it usually does.

It is also worth considering what provides the best first aid coverage in your workplace one first aider trained to a high level (who may be away on the day they’re most needed) or five first aiders trained only in CPR. The cost would be about the same but which scenario provides the better emergency response and which scenario is more likely to provide compliance.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE – 11 December 2009

SafeWorkSA has identified the August 2009 First Aid Code of Practice on its website as the version which will apply from 10 December 2010.

Managerial federalism?

There are some OHS professionals in Australia who follow the harmonisation of the country’s OHS laws closely. The current status is that the various public submissions are being analysed and discussed by the Government.

But for those who are hankering for some pre-Christmas reading the New South Wales Parliament has released a report called “Managerial Federalism – COAG and the States” written by Gareth Griffith. This is not a report about OHS, although the topic does get a brief mention on page 25.

OHS harmonisation is perhaps one of the simpler reform processes compared with tax or the legal sector.

The report provides a very good summary of the various consultative structures that the Federal and State Governments operate within as the country changes to a process of “managerial federalism”. The report summary defines “managerial federalism” as

“…defined to be administrative in its mode of operation, pragmatic in orientation, concerned with the effective and rational management of human and other resources, and rich in policy goals and objectives. The States play a creative and proactive part but are, to a substantial degree, service providers whose performance is subject to continuous scrutiny and oversight.”

(“Rational management”? Has everyone in the Australian government been told to read the book by Kepner and Tregoe? Let’s hope it’s not the 1965 edition.)

Being familiar with some of the concepts and rationales in the report may help those lucky enough to be consulted on government decision-making to know their place in the wild scheme of bureaucratic policy-making. It may even prove invaluable if you are the safety coordinator on one of the Governments’ many infrastructure projects.

Kevin Jones

Tripartism and new/old politics

The future of Australian OHS legislation relies on tripatism, discussion and, hopefully, consensus. In early December 2009, the most recent Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, appointed Eric Abetz to the opposition portfolio of workplace relations. According to a media statement released on 8 December 2009,

“Employment is a vital social and economic portfolio area. Balancing the competing interests to ensure maximum employment levels with acceptable working conditions, is always the challenge”.

“The Coalition fully accepts the verdict of the Australian people at the last election that WorkChoices is dead. However, in defeating WorkChoices, the Australian people did not vote to reinstate the extremism of some in the Union movement”.

“Labor has deliberately strengthened the hand of Trade Union officials as a clear payback for bank rolling Labor’s election campaign”.

Yes, Abetz and the Liberal Party are not in power at the moment and the political pundits say this may not occur for some years. But the hard attitude toward the union movement is not likely to help the development of OHS legislative reforms whether in power or opposition.

Kevin Jones

The relevance of the international Risk Management Standard

It is impossible to review the new international risk management standard as such a standard is a curious beast.

The ISO31000 Risk Management Standard sets down the principles that can apply in a range of industries including, from SafetyAtWorkBlog’s perspective, occupational health and safety.

Australia recently released a draft of a model OHS Act that the government wants to use as a template for uniform OHS laws. That draft Act included a clause on risk management. It said under “The principle of risk management”

“A duty imposed on a person to ensure health or safety requires the person:

(a) to eliminate hazards, and risks to health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable; and

(b) if it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate hazards and risks to health and safety, to minimise those hazards and risks so far as is reasonably practicable.”

It is likely that those business owners who read the legislation (very few) or the OHS professionals who do (slightly more) will interpret this as having to fix the workplace or, at least, try to make sure no one gets hurt at work. They may continue the risk management line and look to the Risk Management Standard which will clarify the principles of risk management, as below in slightly edited form,

“Risk management:

Creates and protects value

Is an integral part of all organisations processes

Is part of decision-making

Explicitly addresses uncertainty

Is systematic, structured and timely

Is based on the best available information

Is tailored

Takes human and cultural factors into account

Is transparent and inclusive

Is dynamic, iterative and responsive to change

Facilitates continual improvement of the organisation”

This is slightly more helpful but still requires translation. (Even the previous risk management standard needed translation with SAI Global going all-out with at least eight handbooks and a CD explaining the standard.) Below is SafetyAtWorkBlog’s plain English attempt:

Get rid of all the safety risks in your workplace or make them safer.
Have a documented plan for this and do not take too long.
Research the hazards so that you are making the best decision on the best information.
Do not cut and paste from somewhere else.
Make sure ALL your work colleagues know what you are doing.
Make sure that you revisit your plan to see if it is working

These points are based only on the principles. The Standard goes into more detail on each of these elements or principles but it is important to remember that this standard only shows one way of making decisions. This standard is also only a guideline, even though some of the text talks about “complying”.

A couple of comments on an OHS discussion forum about the risk management standard described it as being irrelevant to workplace safety, boring and “causing eyes to glaze over”. One suggested that the focus needs to be on establishing a suitable organisational culture. There is a lot to learn from the Standard but perhaps for the OHS professional more so than the client. Perhaps it is best to limit this standard to establishing the decision-making process itself and to leave the application of the decisions to others.

When the Australian risk management standard was first introduced, the narrow application was useful and appropriate but then the commercial possibilities became apparent and SAI Global capitalised on the Standard and tried to make it all things to all people.

The idea of keeping decision-making simple is always relevant but it seems to operate in a cycle from simple to increasingly complex to deconstruction back to simple. Maybe we are at the start of the next cycle.

Kevin Jones

Grass Roots Safety

For over 40 years, the Australian State of Victoria has had several safety organisations that exist under the radar. In the 1960s the Department of Labour & Industries supported the generation of safety groups but many groups simply appeared.

These groups are, what in contemporary times would be referred to as, networking groups. The members were from a range of industries, often from a particularly industrial part of Melbourne of regional areas. The groups met usually once a month sometimes in a factory canteen to talk about safety and to see if any members could suggestion solutions to particular problems.

One group, the Western Safety Group encompasses the western suburbs of Melbourne, a zone of concentrated manufacturing plants and one which includes a major zone of chemical production. (In my youth I would try to catch lizards in the buffer zones around the plants)

A risk with any grass roots association is to reach a level of sustainability without becoming a commercial entity. WSG and the Central Safety Group have achieved this in different ways. In each WSG meeting, which usually runs for around one hour during the day, there is a 10 to 15 minute window for sellers of new OHS products and services to sell their wares. This is a pragmatic solution to the reality that an OHS network’s membership list could be lucrative.

The Central Safety Group has a different approach because it has developed a different character. The CSG, of which I am a Life Member, has conducted its meetings in the centre of Melbourne and with the decline of manufacturing and industry in the city and inner suburbs, the membership has moved from an industrial to managerial approach.

CSG does not allow for the promotion of OHS services and products and is much the better for it. Allowing commercialism into a community or networking group makes it a trade show or exhibition and defeats the purpose.

These two groups, and there are others, have had a fluid membership that has probably topped no more than about 80 members at a time but this is an advantage. Members appreciate the face-to-face discussion. Meetings have minimal formality and foster camaraderie even amongst industrial competitors.

Mostly the safety groups that have lasted have done so by maintaining an independence from the OHS regulator although most groups have at least one member who works with WorkSafe Victoria. Although some of the groups have existed for decades, there is no mention of them on the WorkSafe website although WorkSafe has made several attempts to create a safety group directory and a meeting of Safety Group secretaries almost 10 years ago began discussions with WorkSafe to establish a single webpage listing.

The groups are also, largely, independent from the larger safety organisations although those safety organisations have made moves to support safety groups. Moves that have been mostly rebuffed.

Over the last few year the Western and the Central Safety Groups have established websites (CSG’s will be functioning in December 2009) as the most efficient way to communicate with members in between the monthly meetings.

Such networking groups have huge advantages over professional associations who have such a broad range of issues to consider. The safety group “model” talks about safety and funds itself from annual membership fees of much less than $A100 in most circumstances.

In some circumstance “small is beautiful”, welcoming, professionally satisfying and productive. Victoria’s safety groups are a good example of groups of like-minded OHS professional helping each other out rather than trying to climb the greasy pole.

Kevin Jones

Category: consultation

The future of the School of Risk & Safety Science

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OHS law and safety management

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“Best Practice…First Aid”? – not sure

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Managerial federalism?

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Tripartism and new/old politics

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The relevance of the international Risk Management Standard

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Grass Roots Safety

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