Where theres blame

One of my clearest memories from my time as a site manager was of an accident. Someone had chosen to jump over some stacked materials to take a shortcut, rather than using the clear walking route that went around them, landed badly and hurt his ankle. But despite the circumstances, and the fact that I knew I couldn t have done more myself to prevent this happening, as I helped him off the site to a seat in the canteen the call came loud and clear from the scaffolding above  

The existence of a compensation culture has long been the subject of debate despite the Better Regulation Task Force (BRTF) stating in its report of 2004 that a compensation culture simply did not exist in the UK, others suggest the information was not available to make such statements. Instead there was evidence that some sorts of accident claims have risen (from a relatively low base) and that the overall costs of personal injury settlements have gone up (Williams 2006 513), and ideas of a compensation culture remain a prominent aspect of safety in society. 

It is therefore unsurprising that a vow to kill off the health and safety [compensation] culture for good (Woodcock et a/. 2012) was also included within Prime Minister David Cameron s safety remit. He tasked Lord Young to review the situation, and in his foreword to the report eventually produced Cameron (2010) stated that the need for this review was because  

The standing of health and safety in the eyes of the public has never been lower. 

Yet the reasons for this may not be as clear as Cameron suggests, a thread of his argument drawing on the fact that  

---

In general it has been suggested that, in medical cases, concern ceases when risks fall below about 1 in 100000 so that the procedure then becomes regarded as safe. In such cases, when disaster occurs, it can be difficult indeed for individuals to accept that they deliberately accepted a risk they feel it should not have happened to me and in their distress they may seek to lay blame on others where there is no fault or negligence, only misfortune (see Warnings). 

Thirdly there is the situation where the accident is the fault not of the defendant sued but of some other party. If another party is blamed in the defence, the usual result is that they are joined in as a co-defendant by the plaintiff, and he sues both. However, if a defendant considers that if he is liable to the plaintiff, then he in turn is entitled to recover from someone else any damages he has to pay to the plaintiff in which case that person can be joined in the proceedings by the defendant as a third party. An example of the circumstances where there may be third party proceedings is one where an injured workman who has fallen into a hole at the place where he works sues his employer, who then brings in by third party proceedings the contractor who had left the hole unfenced. In such a case, the plaintiff would have to establish that the defendant was liable to him, and in turn the defendant would then have to prove his case against the third party. The third party will be liable only if the defendant is liable to the plaintiff. 

In the assessment of odour production and nuisance from industrial processes the techniques are by now reasonably well established, and their accuracy and consistency are in principle known. There are major differences however between say a rendering plant on the one hand and a sewage treatment works on the other. One difference is psychological to many people an odour problem is necessarily concomitant to the existence of a sewage works. There have been instances of a well-operated sewage works built next to a tannery, where the sewage works has been almost universally blamed by irate local residents for a problem to which it has contributed in only a minor way. To this extent, for some people the only way to convince them that there is no odour nuisance would be to shut the works completely, and even then it is known that complaints can continue for some time afterwards. 

Where prerequisites are concerned, Exner s view84 that there is nothing about this issue that is not disputed would seem to be accurate. Flowever, there is much that can be eliminated from this dispute if we remember the difference between collective punishment and reprisals (cf. previous, p. 533). A reprisal does not in any way require blame or guilt on the part of the person affected. This is why, for example, the prosecutor in the Kessebing Trial falsely accused the defendant of having made use of innocent persons.85 This is also why reprisals may be imposed on persons or groups of persons that were demonstrably innocent of the violation of international law that is to be avenged.86... 

There is often recrimination after a death. We all look for someone to blame. He and I are theologically a thousand miles apart. He sees me as a radical. Where religion is involved, everything is connected. But as usual when his wife was mentioned, evasion soon followed, accompanied by an opaqueness in his eyes. 

However, there have been cases where companies have hired unpredictable workers without a criminal record. In early 2004, in Texas, for example, a contract security guard at a BASF ammonia facility apparently shot himself, then blamed it on a foreign intruder, only to be arrested on other unrelated charges two weeks later. His story had been covered widely by the media, raising public concerns about plant safety. 

There is little wonder then that we have a drug-conscious society where medicines developed for therapeutic advances are abused and where drugs for which there is no rational or therapeutic use are taken in ever increasing quantities by the weak, the poorly informed, the mentally disturbed, and the constitutionally inadequate. Inevitably, the pharmaceutical industry is blamed for these shortcomings of society because it happens to be the most visible target in an era when many (public and political) refuse to discriminate between medical use and drug abuse. 

Where does all this leave us There are two possible reasons for conducting an accident investigation (1) to assign blame for the accident and (2) to understand why it happened so that future accidents can be prevented. When the goal is to assign blame, the backward chain of events considered often stops when someone or something appropriate to blame is found, such as the baggage handler in the... 

There are, however, five situations where it is legitimate to blame individuals and to discipline them. These situations are ... 

For a safety culture change intervention to be successful, there must be a climate of trust between employees and management. This includes declaring a truce and moving the focus away from injury blame fixing and fault finding to a safe space where injuries can be reported without fear of reprimand—a space where employees safety concerns can be freely expressed. This amnesty is the only way to create a climate in which old embedded safety habits and beliefs can change. 

Because of the safety fear factor there is almost invariably a cover-up after an accident. This most certainly happens after a fatal accident, where employees are terrified of becoming involved in the investigation, especially if legal agencies are involved. This cover-up is another spin-off of the fear factor in industry that hampers the process of creating a positive safety culture. It is a result of years and years of blaming the worker for accidents and will not be changed in a hurry. 

---