British Safety Council’s archive now online

Today the British Safety Council (BSC) has released its digital archive, covering the 60 years of its life and really showing how ideas about health and safety in Britain have changed since 1957.

 

Mike has been advising the BSC on its archive and making best use of its past – and in the project, we benefitted from this, as we were able to visit the archive in person and get early access to its wealth of insight. Contained within the archive are a good run of the BSC’s posters from the 1970s to the present, a complete run of the BSC’s newspaper and magazine publications from 1957, minutes of the BSC’s meetings, reports produced by the BSC and press coverage. It’s a fantastic resource for health and safety practitioners, for historians of health and safety – and indeed for anyone interested in Britain’s social and cultural history.

 

In the archive we can see a gradual increase in concern about workplace health, for example, or the prominence of the EU (Brexit only adds a piquancy to the ‘the load must not be too heavy for Europeans to lift’ poster).

European load, BSC poster  Asbestos kills, BSC poster

Manual work, including using machinery, features strongly – but increasingly over the years office work becomes more visible.

Little chap  1988 office safety, BSC

It’s also interesting to see how ideas about gender have played out – reflecting their times, much of the older material plays to men, featuring women only as sex objects. Later material is more balanced, particularly as more and more women entered the workplace. And of course we can get at ideas about masculinity, as well – a recurring motif is the idea of not being too tough for first aid, for example.

1972 first aid

Although the majority of the archive material focuses on occupational issues, from the outset this was understood in very broad terms, something reflected in the archive which highlights the BSC’s involvement in pretty much every aspect of accident prevention imaginable – including things like consumer safety, healthy beaches, DIY, women’s safety, AIDS, fireworks, children’s playgrounds and more.

 

Needless to say, there’s plenty more in the archive than this quick outline – the best way to get an idea about it is to visit it yourself: https://services.storetec.net/?u=public@bsc.org&p=FreelyDeal42

 

(All images: courtesy British Safety Council)

Aberfan & public safety

50 years ago today, the rest of Britain found out about the existence of a small Welsh mining village – for tragic reasons. On the morning of 21 October 1966 the National Coal Board  (NCB) waste tip that sat above Aberfan collapsed and slid down the hill, engulfing parts of the village, including the junior school. 144 people died, including 116 children. Technically under the then-current health and safety laws, the incident did not even have to be reported to the Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries, as no NCB employees were amongst the casualties and those who had died were not on NCB land.

 

The story of Aberfan is, now, well known, but what is perhaps less commonly realised is the impact the disaster had upon understandings of health and safety. On rare occasions, perhaps, significant disasters sparked considerable public interest and intense debate in the press regarding questions of safety – Aberfan was one of these. Not only so, but crucially it was a point at which occupational and public health and safety met, and the dangers to which the public were exposed as a result of workplace hazards became very visible. As David Eves, then a Factory Inspector and later Deputy Director General of the HSE, recalled in an interview for our project: “Now surprisingly [what happened] wasn’t actually illegal, there wasn’t any legislation about the safety of tips at that time. Naturally a law was then quickly made which required spoil heaps at mines to be examined by a competent civil engineering surveyor periodically, and steps taken to make sure that they were absolutely safe.” (David Eves interview, paragraph 33.) The Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act of 1969 made specific reference to the safety of the public. As Rex Symons, a former member of the HSC, observed at interview for our project: “Aberfan didn’t strike one as being a health and safety issue, it struck you as being a public safety issue” (Rex Symons interview, paragraph 10.) It was becoming clearer that older divisions between health and safety in the workplace and that of the wider public were not so straightforward as might once have seemed.

 

Aberfan wasn’t the first time the public had been affected by what might otherwise have been considered workplace dangers – a notable earlier incident was the Brent Cross crane collapse, in 1964, in which a crane on a construction site in London fell and crushed a passing motor coach, killing 7 and injuring 32. And Aberfan certainly wasn’t the last time the public was affected by occupational hazards – the dramatic 1974 explosion at the Nypro chemical plant in Lincolnshire caused severe damage to the nearby village of Flixborough. What Aberfan did do was add to the mounting sense that something needed to be done to control the risks to which the public were exposed as a result of industry – a feeling which eventually came to pass in the creation of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. The irony was not missed that the Committee which effectively led to the creation of the 1974 Act was chaired by Alfred Robens, chairman of the NCB in October 1966 and who was heavily criticised for his response to the Aberfan tragedy.

Project Report – out now

We’re excited to say that this afternoon IOSH release the reports from the projects that make up their ‘Health and Safety in a Changing World’ research programme – including the report from our project, ‘The Changing Legitimacy of Health and Safety at Work, 1960-2015‘.

Our project report represents the outcome of over two years of work, including multiple focus groups, 40 oral history interviews with key actors, and a wealth of archival research. We describe and analyse what has happened over the past 55 years, in terms of the ways in which health and safety has been understood and perceived, and how people have acted – and, importantly, conclude by making 22 recommendations for current and future practice.

If we had to summarise, we would say our key findings were:

  1. While politics, disasters, and the influence of different stakeholders have brought fluctuations over time, health and safety is actually a remarkably stable system. Institutional longevity and consistent challenges mean that the core idea of health and safety as a public good has endured, and so we should be wary of viewing this as a ‘crisis’, becoming more defensive and alienating audiences further. Open communication, and the confidence to share expertise, are key values to pursue.
  2. One reason for this stability is that health and safety has a life of its own beyond direct Government control, embedded in workplaces and interest groups, and increasingly devolved in form and function. This means deregulation is thus ‘easier said than done’, helping the system to weather political storms. It also means that communicating beyond the ‘core’ of the safety profession and stakeholders, to engage wider audiences, is vitally important.
  3. When dispute and controversy does arise, it is often because positive change tends to bring related negative perceptions. For instance, self-regulation gives choice to, and empowers, decision-makers; this empowerment also allows for a degree of inconsistency and self-prescription; similarly, innovating to tackle new challenges can lead to perceptions of over-reaching. But these controversies can also be celebrated and framed as successes, and we can work with, rather than against, these tendencies.
  4. The great strengths of the health and safety ‘system’ lie in the perceived good motives of those who work in the area; the expertise and skill that they possess (and can advertise or ‘sell’); their ownership of a powerful message (the moral ‘right’ to safe work); and their ability to achieve realistic, tangible change at the local level. All these goals should be prioritised and emphasised in day-to-day engagement with workers, employers, and the public.

Of course, there’s plenty more in the full report, so we encourage you all to read it. You can get hold of a copy here, and find the website for the research programme as a whole at http://www.iosh.co.uk/changingworld

We look forward to hearing what you have to say about it!

Informing those at risk

One of the recurrent themes that our research project encountered across the 55-year period studied was the importance of sharing and disseminating information, both as a means of extending the reach and coverage of the regulatory system, and as a method of avoiding accidents and work-related ill-health and injury. Information-provision is one method of bringing different constituencies into the process of controlling risk, empowering and facilitating workers, employers, and others in managing their own health and safety; as such, it is worth reflecting briefly on how the way that information is shared from regulators and professionals to workers and the public, has changed over time.

At the start of our period, this was very didactic, reflecting a very traditional conception of the relationship between those with information and those without: one witness recalls “We organised tuition mornings in one of the Cutler’s halls, and all the firms sent apprentices in for health and safety instruction, rows and rows of apprentices in front of you” (Stan Barnes interview, para.67). This almost Victorian-sounding image of fresh-faced youngsters receiving instruction underlines the status of information about risk as a technical requirement of training – to be endured and attained rather than actively developed and cultivated. It also emphasises the hierarchical nature of information-sharing – being passed down from those in the know. It is perhaps not hard to see the seeds of a cultural resentment of ‘elf and safety’ being sown here, as well as the parallels with the worst examples of the dreaded ‘away-days’ and ‘mandatory HR training events’ that litter many people’s current experience of health and safety.

The 1974 Act provided a catalyst for significant change. It led to the development of more academic, university-based, professional training in health and safety, with different Universities (with Aston University, which also provided education for trainee HSE inspectors, perhaps foremost among them) stepping in as educational providers. this would underpin much of the efforts made to create and develop a respected and accredited safety ‘profession’ in the years post-1974. But the 1974 Act also made information-provision a more fundamental part of the regulatory system. It imposed a requirement (under s.11 HSWA) for coherent ‘information services’ to be provided by HSE. The practical method developed for this provision was very technologically-driven, using cutting-edge means of distributing technical materials: Sheila Pantry, who pioneered much of HSE’s work in the area, recalled that the HSELINE database, created in the late 1970s, actually made use of the European Space Agency’s international computing platforms (a precursor to the internet), the first public body to do so (interview, para.50). Alongside this, the 1974 Act broadened the law’s coverage, creating a need for accessible, non-specialist materials, such as HSE’s ‘DO AND DON’T’ leaflets, written in layman’s language, and the creation of telephone enquiry lines, among other things. Over time, this provision has expanded and taken on many different forms, and the further expansion of the internet and online resources has facilitated this even further.

In more recent times, however, a concern has been raised by some that the professionalization of health and safety has led to information and training benefiting those within health and safety (‘the converted’), but left the wider public behind (something the Löfstedt report was concerned over). The sophistication of information-provision and training for those for whom health and safety is a central part of their role, has not been matched by successful efforts to educate the wider public and workforce, for whom health and safety is less consciously important (perhaps explaining the residual reliance upon very clunky ‘inset’ methods that alienate more people than they empower). The greatest threats to health and safety tend to emerge from workplaces with a climate of disengagement – either due to employer ignorance and neglect, or employee disenchantment and hostility. Better communication provides the best means of addressing both of these issues. While there are examples (such as the British Safety Council’s work on school-level safety education) of wider engagement initiatives, there is perhaps a need to broaden the scope of ‘safety training’ further in the future – building a more risk-literate and informed citizenry who can think about health and safety issues, and made effective decisions, for themselves.

Some project findings (2)

Here’s the next couple of conclusions from our research project – to give you a flavour of some of the big issues we’ve grappled with and tried to make sense of, and where we’ve ended up!

  • How have public attitudes towards health and safety changed since 1960? How does the public regard health and safety now? Was there ever a consensus as to the social license underpinning health and safety regulation?

Public attitudes towards health and safety have perhaps bifurcated in the last twenty years or so; there is evidence of an instinctive, surface-level antipathy and hostility towards ‘health and safety’, but also of an enduring, underlying acceptance of the importance of health and safety as an area of provision and activity. The right to safety is endorsed, and levels of awareness are relatively high. When hostility is expressed, it is centred upon core issues that symbolise particular moral conundrums around choice and responsibility (such as the ‘compensation culture’), and certain trends towards commercialisation and overspill that might be thought to be more recent issues of concern. But this kind of contest around health and safety is not new, and was present right through our period of study, even the ‘consensus era’ of the 1970s. Those on the right have always contested it as an interference in the autonomy of individuals and of business; those on the left have always valorised it as a progressive undertaking; and many people have accepted an uneasy bargain or balance between these two principles, seeking the capacity to earn money and freedom from bureaucracy, while also demanding to be safe. The only differences now are that these conflicts are played out and settled in a much more public, media-driven, and occasionally politically opportunistic manner than in the past, and arguably with a less visible and developed welfarist lobby to argue in favour of regulation and protection.

  • What are the key factors, events, and trends that exert particular influence over the social profile of health and safety? What are the implications of this for those seeking to shape policy in the next 5-10 years?

The principal implications and recommendations to flow from this investigation’s findings are addressed in our  Recommendations (more on this in due course). In 2015 one of the most significant factors influencing public discussion of health and safety is undoubtedly the media, which has an impact across the social and political spectrum. Shaping the public presentation of health and safety issues is therefore a key challenge for those seeking to influence policy and practice in the future, and a number of suggestions relating to this goal are set out below. Spectacular moments of crisis (e.g. Aberfan, Flixborough, Piper Alpha, Ladbroke Grove) propel health and safety issues briefly to the top of the agenda; but longer term attitudes are derived from more mundane, day-to-day experiences of health and safety. Striking a balance in response to each side of the equation is therefore an important consideration for policy-makers. Finally, perceptions of the proportionality of regulation and health and safety protections have in recent years had an increasingly important part to play in defining the social profile of health and safety.

What do you think?

Book chapter now out: ‘Il/Legitimate Risks? Occupational Health and Safety and the Public in Britain, c. 1960–2015’

In addition to presenting research findings at conferences and symposia, and producing the project report, we’ve also been working on publications. One of these came out earlier this month – a chapter in an edited book looking at risk in modern Britain.

 

In the chapter, we show how public opinion came to exercise a key role in health and safety regulation in post-1960 Britain, extending governance beyond the State. We argue that the period after 1985 was crucial, when the changing political and economic structure of the UK, including the gradual decline of trades unions and rise of neo-liberalism with its anti-regulatory agenda, increasingly made health and safety and State intervention matters of significant political dispute. Amid these public disputes, the State took greater steps to respond to attitudes about health and safety at work and beyond, and incorporate the public voice in the regulatory process. This crossover between the workplace and wider society is particularly significant, and from it we can see the roots of contemporary ideas – and, indeed, distrust in some quarters – about health and safety.

 

The chapter appears in the book Governing Risks in Modern Britain: Danger, Safety and Accidents, c.1800-2000, which Mike co-edited:  http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137467447

 

Some project findings (1)

As we have reached the end of our project, and are now preparing to share and disseminate the results, it seemed a good time to put forward a few of the conclusions that we posited in our report (which IOSH will be publishing in the coming months). There is much more in the project, and more conclusions, to share, but here are a couple to start us off:

  • How and why have perceptions of health and safety changed in Britain since 1960? What historical, economic, legal, and sociological factors have prompted any change in perceived legitimacy?

Perceptions of health and safety have, in general terms, remained relatively (and surprisingly) stable over time. There have been consistent challenges, particularly surrounding the role of the state, though these have varied in intensity (often around moments of crisis). There have also been changes in the way the health and safety is conceptualised, arising from changes in the law and the economy: notably the HSWA 1974 and extension of coverage under s.3 to include the public, and the declining economic importance of heavy industry coupled with the rise of newer sectors of employment and their radically different health and safety challenges. Political and media discussion of health and safety has become increasingly polarised, certainly in the last 20 years or so. At the same time, the principle that protecting people (at work or beyond) from death, injury and ill-health is a good thing has rarely been contested, even if the form of that protection has been debated.

  • How far do changes in policy and perception during this period reflect historical continuities, particularly with reference to changing ideas of voluntarism, individual agency, and the role of the state?

A key continuity across the period would be the degree of variation of state policy: as political parties have changed, policies towards health and safety have changed – just as they have done for the preceding 150 years or more. Here a key example would be the movement towards a more consensual policy in the 1970s contrasted with a shift to a much more fractious relationship in the 1980s. In this sense, the period since 1960 has followed a much older pattern, and one which we could reasonably expect to continue in the future. The notion of voluntary solutions to occupational health and safety issues was long-standing and has continued to underlie much of the thinking since 1960 – articulated (albeit in slightly different terms) in Robens’ influential conclusions about self-regulation. Central to this narrative is the understanding of individuals as possessing sufficient rationality and autonomy to be able to safeguard their lives and health. Such ideas have continued to remain influential as they are, put simply, attractive to most people, who like to think that they are capable of judging risk and taking care of themselves.

What do you think?

IOSH 2016 Conference – project presentations

Mike and Paul will be presenting an overview of project research and recommendations at next week’s IOSH 2016 conference in London. This is a really exciting opportunity for the project’s findings to start influencing practitioners and policy-makers. There will be over 800 delegates present at the conference, from around the world, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how our work is received.

 

Appropriately, we’re part of the ‘Positioning for the Future’ strand – whilst our project has kept one eye on the past, we’re clear that knowing what has happened is essential to understanding the present, and can be a dynamic way of generating suggestions for how we might shape the future.

 

As when writing the project report, a key challenge in preparing our presentations has been thinking about how to make sure contemporary practitioners can see how and why the past is important and relevant. We’re looking forward to some interesting discussion and questions after the presentation, and really hoping to inspire delegates to take up the project’s recommendations!

 

More details from: http://www.ioshconference.co.uk/

The last 6 months …

So, we’ve been rather quiet of late – mainly because we’ve had so much to do! We’ve spent a lot of the last 6 months or so finishing off the research, conducting the final interviews and having them transcribed, thinking about what it all means and putting together our final report, including recommendations for the future.

That report was sent off to IOSH in August, and is currently being reviewed – we’re expecting to hear back from IOSH shortly. There will probably be some changes to make as a result, but after that we’ll have the formal report in hand. This will be publicly released at the same time as all of the reports from the IOSH research programme as a whole – more details on this to follow as-and-when we have them.

We’ve also been working on a number of other publications – an article for a special issue, based around the IOSH research programme, of Policy and Practice in Heath & Safety; a chapter for a book made up of contributions from the various IOSH-funded research projects; and a chapter for a book, co-edited by Mike, on the history of governing risks in modern Britain.

Although the project funding is now finished, the work isn’t. We’re now working with IOSH on the formal launch of their whole research programme, and on various publications and other outputs. So, watch out for more from us over the coming months, including more posts on this blog.

PhD Opportunity: History of Risk and Safety – applications welcome

Excellent news for anyone considering pursuing a PhD in History – there’s an opportunity up for grabs at the University of Portsmouth at the moment, under the project’s Mike Esbester.

 

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Portsmouth is making a number of PhD studentships available in core areas of interest. Within the History area, one of the topics is the history of everyday dangers and risks and how they have been understood and managed in Britain since c.1900.

 

Debates about safety and risk management are integral to contemporary British society, but are as yet under-historicised. This PhD will lead the development of this broad area. Within the broad remit of a focus on 20th-century Britain, there is great freedom for the successful candidate to define the parameters of the project in conjunction with the supervisor, Dr Mike Esbester. Possible areas might include: how people have constructed and responded to risk in everyday life; the development and role of safety organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and local safety councils; the use of safety education as a means of governing individuals and actions; the role of the state in managing risk. These areas might be accessed by exploring topics including workplace safety, road safety or home safety.

 

The studentship will start on 1 September 2015 and last for 3 years full-time; it covers fees, with additional payment for teaching during the course of the PhD. Applications are welcomed from suitably qualified UK/ EU candidates.

 

For full details, including the application process, please see: http://www.port.ac.uk/postgraduate-research/history-sociology-and-politics/current-phd-opportunities/phd-project-opportunity.html

 

Mike welcomes informal enquiries about the post: mike.esbester@port.ac.uk

 

The deadline for applications is midnight on 31 July 2015; interviews are expected to take place in the week commencing 10 August, in Portsmouth.