M Bancroft R Lovering M Whitham R Walker M Galloway S McMorland B Anderson R Paterson D Sinclair P J Colquhon D Duff N Olliver A Parkinson A Reid M Scott-Smith D Morrison S Page I M Murray A Milne J Hepburn K Lloyd P Gotch R McLean J McCraith L Young R Innes V Stewart L Crichton A Sharman I Ferguson

1.0 CHAIR Richard Lovering

Richard took the Chair and the meeting held within the Dining Hall. New members and Guests were welcomed and the importance of the Sederunt outlined. Members were again reminded of the importance of driving with extreme care within the school grounds and not to use the numbered parking bays.

2.0 MINUTES

The 133rd Minute was accepted without amendment. Proposed by L Young and Seconded by M Bancroft.

3.0 MATTERS ARISING

4.0 CORRESPONDENCE

The correspondence is readily available at the front table during the tea break for the Members attention.

5.0 BRANCH EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT OOFICER - Liz Young

The members were reminded that only those already registered could seek up-grade to Tech SP and portfolios must be with HQ by the end of the year.

6.0 SPECIALIST GROUPS

7.0 PROPOSED DISTRICT REPORT

Brian Pill was not present so there was no report. The Secretary reported that the District Programme for next year was nearly finalized and would go out with the Branch Programme in the summer.

8.0 MEMBERS ITEMS

There were none at this meeting. The Chairman reminded members of his previous comments that one of the essential strengths of IOSH was our willingness to help each other. This was particularly important for a new entrant to the profession. He encouraged members to be willing to use this slot in the agenda to share experience - he would particularly welcome offers of presentations of 5/10 minutes about problems solved and/or encountered.

9.0 GUEST SPEAKER

The Chairman firstly explained to the members present that the original speaker planned to present a paper that afternoon (Professor Kenny Millar), had been summoned to London to chair a meeting of the Central Arbitration Committee, a meeting which could not be rearranged as it had been arranged to suit all of the legal parties involved and due to his involvement in the issue he had to take the chair. The Executive had however managed to gain the services of someone else at very short notice which he hoped would be acceptable to the members, as the individual concerned was able to fill the slot at such short notice despite the fact that he had only just (Tuesday) returned from holiday.

Kevin Lloyd then introduced the speaker as Peter Gotch - Group H&S Adviser with the Babtie Group. Peter is an ex-Factory Inspector whose specialty is within the construction field and he had previously presented to Edinburgh Branch on the topic of CDM. Peter’s presentation was to be a replay of a presentation which he made in Manchester on 16th April as the Douglas Short Memorial Lecture. Peter then indicated that Douglas Short was the Factory Inspector credited as the architect of the Construction Regulations 61 and 66, who died of asbestos related disease and the Memorial Lecture is promoted by IOSH Construction Specialist Group, generally as an annual event and he had been put forward to present it having suggested the topic the previous year.

An Accident Vs a Disaster?

For the purposes of this presentation Peter was using the definition of an accident as =

"An unplanned event with the potential to result in harm"

He agreed that if the outcome of an accident was in fact more akin to a disaster the level of public interest would most likely lead to public inquiries and investigation by various bodies such that a whole raft of suggestions as to how a repeat could be avoided would be forthcoming. However, if the outcome was more mundane and just registered as "an accident" we do not seem to take the same level of account of the incident.

The presenter suggested the reason for the lack of publicity which is likely to follow a "normal accident" could be -

• Who is prepared to admit they made a mistake?
• It is likely to be embarrassing
• Its bad news - either for you personally or the Company image. Organizations like to boast about good outcomes, but not the bad things and the disasters.

The presenter quoted an example from the Name & Shame web-site - dated February 1999

"Failure to comply with the provisions of the law led to a fatal accident"

What does this actually tell you of the event which could be beneficial in preventing it happening again? The presenter felt there was little or nothing to be gained from these 14 words, and in fact Babtie suffered what turned out to be a very similar incident some 4 months later, which they may have been able to prevent if they had known of the conditions which related to the incident.

The first incident had resulted in a fatality from working with an unguarded auger. Babtie’s incident was less serious in that a technician was injured but it resulted in a prosecution for Babtie, where the entry in the HSE website is = "Injury to employee whilst using road coring rig at night - no guards", but the presenter went on to show that in fact the real reasons behind the incident were actually the result of an unauthorized system of work which had been adopted by the technicians doing the job.

Laying blame or prompting prevention?

Peter went on to show that whilst the brief details on the name and shame web-site gave very little in terms of detail which could be of benefit to others trying to prevent a similar occurrence, in fact the HSE did not offer any assistance in developing preventative controls at all.

All too often the activities included in any accident investigation are attributed to laying blame at someone’s door. This is often the injured party themselves, especially if they have died as they can not argue back. There is a need for confidential reports to be created which do not lay blame, nor identify the parties involved and it would be much better of the type of accidents being investigated were near- misses rather than the serious incidents where there is too much pre-occupation on avoiding blame.

The oil industry (Scandinavian offshore activities) has shown the benefits of looking into near-misses and now the transport sector has shown they are gaining benefits in the same way. Any aircraft involved in a near miss will initiate a detailed investigation in order to prevent a recurrence, but who could see this working within the Construction Industry. How widely publicized has the recent imprisonment of a Construction Manager for an 18 months sentence been undertaken - most of the members present knew nothing of the event despite it being some 6 to 8 weeks previous.

"Because the driller and/or helper must have access to the auger area, a physical guard for the auger may be impractical"

and

"Mobile Drilling Company …. Has developed and emergency shut-off device with a trip cable to stop the drive shaft’s rotary motion instantaneously"

Despite the fact that the speaker did not believe this system would be practicable on a construction site, at least they had attempted to find and provide a solution.

The speaker then showed that the case against Babtie was not fully justified and was in fact wrongly directed, but the Company had decided it was better to plead guilty rather than take on the HSE on points of law etc which would achieve nothing in preventing the next incident

Babtie still have a further 200 piece of similar kit in use and they need to develop a system of work or guarding system which will prevent accidents.

10.0 DATE OF NEXT MEETINGS

Richard thanked the members for their attendance; he then set the dates for the next meetings as:

The Chairman closed the meeting by thanking the members for their attendance and participation; he encouraged them to mingle and chat during tea and and bade them all a safe and restful summer recess.