19th October 2005, 07:11 PM
The calls I have received recently seem to be in response to my agenda for the forthcoming BAJR conference. Eggy makes a number of good points, I will try to answer them here....
It has been said before that there is a problem of attitude on the part of many employers who see those who flag up HS issues as nothing short of whistleblowers. Those who contact me have, for the most part, been through the line manager route and frankly, been laughed at. I posted a thread here a while ago asking for examples of HS contraventions and they just keep coming. The recent calls-ones that prompted my last post, are from people working for the same units over and over again. Some contraventions could be sorted by going along the line manager route but, others, where there is a cross-over between developer/archaeologist risk assessments (or total lack of) are not so straight forward. If it`s proof we`re after, I recommend that field staff carry a disposable camera at all times. I agree, following the line manager route is ideal however, not all field staff work in an environment where that would result in positive action. Just positive unemployment. I am contacted because I want to document the current state of HS in modern archaeology. I would like at this point to ask some simple questions again....How many of you who write risk assessments hold health and safety qualifications? How many field supervisory staff hold health and safety qualifications? How many units have a quality control system in place where risk assessments are checked over? Why does`nt our industry train dedicated members of staff in HS? Why has`nt IFA/Prospect come up with appropriate HS courses? Why is there an overwhelmingly large number of sites out there without a risk assessment? Eggy-I think you have a superb idea-it is indeed high time that the HSE were introduced to our industry...it`s patently obvious that we are either incapable or simply unwilling to deal with this issue internally.
It has been said before that there is a problem of attitude on the part of many employers who see those who flag up HS issues as nothing short of whistleblowers. Those who contact me have, for the most part, been through the line manager route and frankly, been laughed at. I posted a thread here a while ago asking for examples of HS contraventions and they just keep coming. The recent calls-ones that prompted my last post, are from people working for the same units over and over again. Some contraventions could be sorted by going along the line manager route but, others, where there is a cross-over between developer/archaeologist risk assessments (or total lack of) are not so straight forward. If it`s proof we`re after, I recommend that field staff carry a disposable camera at all times. I agree, following the line manager route is ideal however, not all field staff work in an environment where that would result in positive action. Just positive unemployment. I am contacted because I want to document the current state of HS in modern archaeology. I would like at this point to ask some simple questions again....How many of you who write risk assessments hold health and safety qualifications? How many field supervisory staff hold health and safety qualifications? How many units have a quality control system in place where risk assessments are checked over? Why does`nt our industry train dedicated members of staff in HS? Why has`nt IFA/Prospect come up with appropriate HS courses? Why is there an overwhelmingly large number of sites out there without a risk assessment? Eggy-I think you have a superb idea-it is indeed high time that the HSE were introduced to our industry...it`s patently obvious that we are either incapable or simply unwilling to deal with this issue internally.