Total liable for Buncefield blast

BBC website20 March 2009

Nearly 4 years after the explosion at the Buncefield oil depot in Hertfordshire, a judgement has been reached on which company was liable for the damages

The depot was owned by Total and Chevron in a joint venture called Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL), but was operated by Total.

The ignition of the vapour cloud which followed the spillage of 300 tons of petrol, caused an explosion which measured 2.4 on the Richter Scale.

The court's view was that "Total had failed to discharge the burden of establishing that HOSL was responsible for the negligence of the supervisor." This was based on the fact that

* All those working at the site had contracts with Total;
* The terminal manager who was the most senior member of staff on site was appointed by Total and line managed by Total.
* All safety instructions were developed by Total.
* Total's head office staff to develop an adequate system for preventing the overfilling of a tank.

In a statement Total said: "We still believe... our joint venture partner should accept their share of the responsibilities for the incident.

"As a consequence we will be considering our grounds for appeal."

The Guardian was more damning of Total, blaming sloppy practices and inadequate risk assessment. Judge David Steel described the events leading up to the blast as "remarkable"

Des Collins, representing a number of claimants said "This judgment is a shocking indictment of the way in which this ultra-hazardous operation was conducted by Total." "What is equally shocking is the degree of irresponsibility demonstrated by Total over the past three years in its failure to recognise the ultimate futility of the series of defences which it adopted."

The court listed various reasons for the explosion, including the negligence of supervisors and a series of failures in risk assessment and prevention. The judge was also critical of a "near miss" at the plant in August 2003.

"I am left with the clearest impression that practices within the control room were at best sloppy," said the judge.

The Financial Times quoted more from Justice Steel including "overall want of planning and monitoring all contributed to the disaster"

Also, that Total declined to call several key witnesses during the civil trial, including the two supervisors on duty at the time and its operations manager.

The only director of the depot’s operating company that did testify was found by the judge to be "somewhat evasive and unwilling to face up to the difficulties of reconciling his evidence with the contemporary material".

The court was told during trial that there had already been a “near-miss” at the site when a tank gauge stuck in August 2003.

The supervisors working on the night of the 2005 explosion, were "somewhat ironically" awarded certificates of competency less than a week before, the judgment notes.

Councils get banned jargon list

Widely reported in the press including BBC on 18 March 2009

The Local Government Association (LGA) has published a list of words they consider to be jargon and not suitable for use in documents issued to the general public.

LGA chairman Margaret Eaton said: "The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases."

According to the BBC the 200 banned words are

Across-the-piece

Actioned

Advocate

Agencies

Ambassador

Area based

Area focused

Autonomous

Baseline

Beacon

Benchmarking

Best Practice

Blue sky thinking

Bottom-Up

CAAs

Can do culture

Capabilities

Capacity

Capacity building

Cascading

Cautiously welcome

Challenge

Champion

Citizen empowerment

Client

Cohesive communities

Cohesiveness

Collaboration

Commissioning

Community engagement

Compact

Conditionality

Consensual

Contestability

Contextual

Core developments

Core Message

Core principles

Core Value

Coterminosity

Coterminous

Cross-cutting

Cross-fertilisation

Customer

Democratic legitimacy

Democratic mandate

Dialogue

Direction of travel

Distorts spending priorities

Double devolution

Downstream

Early Win

Edge-fit

Embedded

Empowerment

Enabler

Engagement

Engaging users

Enhance

Evidence Base

Exemplar

External challenge

Facilitate

Fast-Track

Flex

Flexibilities and Freedoms

Framework

Fulcrum

Functionality

Funding streams

Gateway review

Going forward

Good practice

Governance

Guidelines

Holistic

Holistic governance

Horizon scanning

Improvement levers

Incentivising

Income streams

Indicators

Initiative

Innovative capacity

Inspectorates

Interdepartmental

Interface

Iteration

Joined up

Joint working

LAAs

Level playing field

Lever

Leverage

Localities

Lowlights

MAAs

Mainstreaming

Management capacity

Meaningful consultation

Meaningful dialogue

Mechanisms

Menu of Options

Multi-agency

Multidisciplinary

Municipalities

Network model

Normalising

Outcomes

Outcomes

Output

Outsourced

Overarching

Paradigm

Parameter

Participatory

Partnership working

Partnerships

Pathfinder

Peer challenge

Performance Network

Place shaping

Pooled budgets

Pooled resources

Pooled risk

Populace

Potentialities

Practitioners

Predictors of Beaconicity

Preventative services

Prioritization

Priority

Proactive

Process driven

Procure

Procurement

Promulgate

Proportionality

Protocol

Provider vehicles

Quantum

Quick hit

Quick win

Rationalisation

Rebaselining

Reconfigured

Resource allocation

Revenue Streams

Risk based

Robust

Scaled-back

Scoping

Sector wise

Seedbed

Self-aggrandizement

Service users

Shared priority

Shell developments

Signpost

Single conversations

Single point of contact

Situational

Slippage

Social contracts

Social exclusion

Spatial

Stakeholder

Step change

Strategic

Strategic priorities

Streamlined

Sub-regional

Subsidiarity

Sustainable

Sustainable communities

Symposium ­­

Synergies

Systematics

Taxonomy

Tested for Soundness

Thematic

Thinking outside of the box

Third sector

Toolkit

Top-down

Trajectory

Tranche

Transactional

Transformational

Transparency

Upstream

Upward trend

Utilise

Value-added

Vision ­

Visionary

Welcome

Wellbeing

Worklessness

Deadly rules

Article in The Guardian by Cath Janes on 14 March 2009

A refreshing article that explores some of the issues about health and safety being allowed to go over the top. Some excerpts below



Our office has fire doors which we actually prop open with fire extinguishers. We know we shouldn't - but we do it anyway. These are the words of an office manager who wishes to remain anonymous.

The Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, so health and safety should be second nature by now. But it's not. Employees continue to complain about the inconvenience of fire drills and computer monitor adjustments. Yet experts continue to point at the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) reports of 2.1 million people suffering from illnesses they believe to have been caused or worsened at work.

"Health and safety should be a powerful unifying agenda between employers and the workforce, not a matter for confrontation," says Judith Hackitt, chair of the HSE. "The problem tends to be the misinterpretation of what is actually required." One recent initiative tries to dispel the idea that risk assessments need to be 10 pages or more for every task. "We have shown what's 'good enough' and that's all you have to do," says Hackitt.

David Symons, director at WSP Environment & Energy, a consultancy firm says "The problem is that health and safety is applied by people who don't have a deep understanding of what needs to be done. It's no wonder that it is seen as an impediment to the day job. It's not the legislation that's an issue, it's the implementation of it." "We are all adults," he says. "Let's just communicate the principles well. Communicate badly and it comes off as patronising. And if that's the case, and health and safety isn't being achieved, something has to be done about it."

"Paperwork is a sign of bad health and safety management," claims Lawrence Waterman, chairman of another consulting firm, Sypol. "If you are not rigorous in reviewing procedures you get a lot of bureaucracy and lose track of what you are asking people to do. Yes, it can be sensible to jot things down but there's a fine line between risk management and bureaucratic obstruction.

"That's why health and safety is a job for professionals. They can weave safety procedures through good business practice and not have it hanging about as a separate dynamic."

Business psychologist Pearn Kandola. "Humans want to fight against those rules though. We like to be free and intuitive and follow our emotions.

"There's also a reason why health and safety isn't second nature. It's because humans are risk-takers. We are not naturally safe and don't like health and safety, or the people who implement it, because we perceive them to be rule-bound and boring. While their role is essential it is never going to appeal to us, because we don't like rules and regulations."

Which, in the fight against the ministry of the bleedin' obvious, is a snag. Are employees ever going to prove they don't need to be warned against sticking their wet fingers in plug sockets? Surely what lies at the heart of health and safety is common sense, and we all have that ... don't we?

"You hear people saying that it is all about common sense," agrees Duff, "The problem is, they don't use it. We are not rational beings and accidents are often the result of irrational behaviour. We think we are great at making our own rules, but we are not."

Is this still a reason to treat employees like children, though? Problems in the workplace often lead to demotivation, low productivity and withering loyalty. Health and safety is no exception. On one hand you are considered savvy enough to close a deal with a client, yet on the other you are considered a prime candidate for a box-lifting demonstration. It's little wonder health and safety rankles. It's almost a reminder that you are not as in control as you thought you were.

"Which is why risks should be managed in a proportionate way rather than wrapping people up in cotton wool and taking the fun out of life," warns Derek Draper, senior consultant at Connaught Compliance. "The bonkers conkers stories just trivialise health and safety and detract attention from the task of keeping people safe at work. Risk assessment needn't be complicated though. After all we do a subconscious risk assessment every time we so much as cross the road."

Hackitt, of the HSE, has a final suggestion. "Challenge your employer but do it constructively," she says. "Don't turn health and safety into a management versus workforce confrontation issue. Offer solutions or more common sense ways of approaching the problem. Remember, it's about doing what is sensible, reasonable and practical to reduce risk, not eliminating it, and still getting on with your job."

Andy Brazier

Oops, we did it again - Why we make mistakes

Book review in The Independent on 18 March 2009 by Sophie Morris

The book is Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T Hallinan, an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

The book has attracted winning reviews, with one critic predicting that it would change the face of mainstream behavioural science. Subtitled "How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average", Hallinan's book is, according to its author, "a field guide to human error. People can look at it and see the mistakes they make, and find some of the reasons behind those mistakes."

The book says that error is a not personality or intelligence issue, and simply something to do with the way humans are designed. The very way we think, see and remember sets us up for mistakes. We are subconsciously biased, quick to judge by appearances and overconfident of our own abilities. Most of us believe we are above average at everything – a statistical impossibility that leads to slip-ups.

Until I read the book I can't tell whether there is anything new here.

Andy Brazier

Night shifts spark cancer pay-out

Article on BBC website by Kenneth Macdonald on 16 March 2009

The Danish government has begun paying compensation to women who have developed breast cancer after long spells working nights. It follows a ruling by a United Nations agency that night shifts probably increase the risk of developing cancer.

There has been growing evidence that night shifts are bad for you for years. Symptoms include disturbed sleep, fatigue, digestive problems and a greater risk of accidents at work. Cancer is now being added because there is a 'probable' link.

Dr Vincent Cogliano of the IARC said they reached their conclusion after looking at a wide number of studies of both humans and animals.

He said there was evidence to support the hypothesis that alterations in sleep patterns could suppress the production of melatonin in the body.

"Melatonin has some beneficial effects in preventing some of the steps leading to cancer," he said.

"The level of evidence is really no different than it might be for an industrial chemical."

What is not clear from this article is how big a risk factor night work is compared to others.

Andy Brazier

New computer to help cut hospital mistakes

Article on theBeattie Group website on 17 February 2009

A new computer has been launched in the UK that "could be the key to eliminating some of the 40,000 mistakes made each year in NHS hospitals"

The Panasonic CF-H1 Toughbook Mobile Clinical Assistant (MCA) has been developed in conjunction with NHS nurses to give them wireless access to patient notes at the bedside - spelling the end of the clipboard at the end of each bed.

It will give nurses access to up-to-the-minute electronic patient records, has a series of security features aimed at minimising the room for human error on high-pressure wards, enables other clinical staff such as doctors and pharmacists to check up-to-date medical history at patients' bedsides leading to them making quicker and better-informed decisions, is able to read barcodes in order to cut out any room for misreading labels and further ensure that the right treatment is given to the correct patient at all times.

Jon Tucker, product head for the MCA at Panasonic, said: "Hundreds of mistakes are estimated to be made in hospitals every week at the moment, either through poor communication or basic human error.

"Nurses are often required to memorise information, like changes to medication, then input the details into a computer off the ward afterwards which can result in delays in data input or forgotten information.

"Disjointed communication with other departments and between shift workers has also been a cause of mistakes in treatment.

"This computer enables nurses to update a patient's central records at the bedside during ward rounds, dramatically reducing the potential for mistakes."

Quiet cars may need alert for pedestrians

Article by Tom Greenwood in Detroit News on 17 February 2009

The National Federation for the Blind is concerned that electric and hybrid cars are so quiet the blind and visually impaired could be killed or seriously injured by walking unknowingly in front of them.

Tom agrees and tells a story from the recent North American International Auto Show where he was investigating "green" technology. He says "Believe me when I say they were absolutely silent; my vision and hearing are fine, but I found myself looking over my shoulder to see if a vehicle was creeping up on me."

The NFB is advocating for quiet vehicles to be equipped to emit a continuous sound and wants additional research on the problem.

Scientists from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society tested a number of visually impaired individuals and asked them which of six types of sounds -- engine, horn, hum, siren, whistle and white noise -- they preferred as warnings.

By far the most preferred sound was that of an automobile engine, followed by white noise and hum.