Health and safety needs board-level leadership

The Health and Safety Executive has unveiled a second series of case studies that demonstrate the vital role that director leadership has to play in health and safety.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has unveiled a second series of case studies that demonstrate the vital role that director leadership has to play in health and safety.

The ten case studies were featured at the HSE's conference at Edinburgh Business School on 19 May 2005 to highlight the benefits that director leadership brings both to the health and safety of the employees and to the business.

The case studies, compiled by risk management consultants Greenstreet Berman, are drawn from private companies and public bodies across the construction, health services, local authority, oil and petrochemical, printing and prison sectors.

Featured organisations are: BP, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, De La Rue, Glasgow City Council, Her Majesty's Prison Service, Mace, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, Pendle Borough Council, Renfrewshire Council and Rhodia UK.

The director leadership case studies build on the Health and Safety Commission's (HSC's) guidance, Directors' responsibilities for Health and Safety, published in 2001, and the business benefits case studies published by HSC/E in 2004.

While the HSE's evidence shows a high degree of awareness of the HSC guidance among directors it is clear that around one-third of organisations do not have board-level arrangements in place for directing health and safety.

The HSC/E undertook to build on the guidance by providing accessible and persuasive case studies that bring home the benefits of director leadership.

The case studies being published supplement the first series of director leadership case studies published by the HSE earlier in 2005.

HSC member Margaret Burns, opening the conference, said: "It is clear that a growing number of organisations across all sectors see board-level direction as vital.

"An estimated two-thirds are aware of the contents of the HSC guidance on directors' responsibilities and are following the advice it contains.

"The HSC is confident that the eleven case studies being published today at the conference on director leadership at the Edinburgh Business School will be persuasive and influential in moving those 'yet to be convinced' organisations to weigh-up the value board-level direction could produce for them".

Richard Thorpe, a Director of Mace and project director for the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters build in Edinburgh, said: "I was never cared about as a site worker - so now I think caring matters.

"If you do welfare and safety well you will be more profitable: through winning more work based on your safety record - a business risk for clients - through avoiding disruption and need for board involvement following accidents".

The full text of the case studies on director leadership on health and safety and the case studies published earlier in 2005 can be accessed on the HSE web site.

The HSE has also published a series of case studies that illustrate the business benefits of well managed health and safety; these can also be accessed on the HSE website.

The HSE conference that took place at the Edinburgh Business School was intended to promote health and safety management as an integral part of effective business management and to highlight the critical role that directors have to play in ensuring risks to the health and safety of their employees are properly controlled.

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