제  목 : British Safety Council Campaign aims to improve boardroom awareness
  일  자 : 1997년 10월
  제공처 : Safety Management

    British Safety Council Campaign aims to improve boardroom awareness
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    A business safety campaign seeking to alert boardrooms to the
  massive preventable costs of accidents and ill health at work - and
  of the need to integrate health, safety and environmental man-
  agement into the overall management agenda - will be mounted
  by the British Safety Council during the European week of Safety
  20-26 0ctober.

    In a two week tour from 6 october Director General Sir NeviIIe
  Purvis will be meeting British safety Council member compa-
  nies in a series of seven presentations and site visits in Edinburgh,
  Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Luton and London.

    He hopes to enlighten those  directors and managers who are
  unaware ofjust how big the savings from safety management and
  best practice can be.

     'Too many companies still see  health and safety as an inconve-
  nience, as a cost, rather than a benefit' he said.
     'But the facts do not bear this out. The consequences of`poor
  safety management are 33 million working days lost through avoid-
  able work-related illnesses and accidents and an estimated ￡16
  billion a Year lost to the economy.'

    Managerial and organisational failure is thought to be responsi-
  ble for 80 percent of all accidents, according to the Health and
  Safety Executive (HSE).

    The theme of the campaign, which has the support of the Engineering
   Employers' Federation (EEF) and the Institute of Direectors(IoD)
   as well as Bob Ayling, Chief Executive of British Airways, and
   John Neill, Group Chief Executive of Unipart, as that good safety is
   good business.

    Health and Safety Commission Chairman Frank Davies and Health
   and Safety Executive Regional Directors are expected to attend,
   evening receptions during the campaign.

       The British Safety Council will be urging its members to point out
    to directors the business benefits of health. safety and environmental
    best practice. By aiming for this rather than the minimum legal
    requirements, the Council believes that the benefits for firms can
    include lower insurance premiums, fewer lost working days, reduced
    sickness bills and less money spent on training replacenrent staff.

    Giving hrs support to the campaign, Tim Melville Ross, Director General
   of the IoD said that directors had a special responsibility to ensure
   that their companies adopted best practice in health, safety and
   environmental management.

    'This is not only in the interests of all who come into contact with
   the organisation - staff, customers, suppliers, the local community -
   it will also ensure the long-term health of the organisation itself,
   and thereby enhance shareholder returns,' he said. Anne Minto, Deputy
   Director of the EEF, said that while the legal and humanitarian reasons
   for managing safety at work were clear, 'all too often the cost
   of accidents and occupational ill health is grossly underestimated.'
   Health and safety was not an act of faith, it was a vital part
   of staying competitive.