Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520
- 537)
WEDNESDAY 7 JULY 2004
MS SANDRA
CALDWELL AND
MS ELIZABETH
GYNGELL
Q520 Mr Cran: In the Armed Forces?
Ms Caldwell: In the Armed Forces.
That looks as though it was not a work related death. We are conscious
that there may be evidence that stress and bullying may be an
issue and we are making sure that we are looking into it. There
are various reasons. Obviously we have the responsibility, but
also we ourselves are developing expertise in this area. Elizabeth
can tell you about the work we are doing on developing management
standards and work we have been doing with DTI on bullying, really
to make sure that the right standards are going to be applied
and the right understanding is being developed.
Q521 Mr Cran: Do I understand from
that and from previous answers to questions that albeit you are
doing what you have just outlined, the MoD may or may not listen?
Ms Caldwell: I should be very
surprised if they did not. As I have actually said to you, they
are very co-operative when we make recommendations. Nothing has
been brought to my attention as an issue and a real concern that
the MoD did not respond. I have every expectation that they will
respond.
Q522 Mr Cran: I do not doubt that
they are keen to respond, but I just want to know what the situation
is. They do not have to respond.
Ms Caldwell: Yes, because although
there is Crown immunity and we are unable to use our enforcement
powers, what we have set up are equivalent administrative procedures.
For example, my inspectors have powers to issue what are called
prohibition notices and powers to issue improvement notices. Where
Crown immunity does not bite, a prohibition notice would stop
work activity immediately until the issue had been put to rights
and an improvement notice is a legally binding document which
requires certain improvements to be made. What have been agreed
across the piece with the Cabinet Office, where Crown immunity
bites, and there are instructions on this, are Crown notices.
We have Crown prohibition notices and we have Crown improvement
notices. If we made a judgment of the nature you were indicating,
that we felt our recommendations were not being taken seriously,
or that we were not going down the right lines, we could issue
a Crown improvement notice.
Mr Cran: That is really helpful. Thank
you very, very much.
Q523 Mike Gapes: Where young people
aged 16 or 17 are in training, in general employers must take
steps to supervise them appropriately and ensure the risks have
been reduced. What particular steps would you expect the Armed
Forces to take to meet the particular needs of young recruits
under the age of 18? Would it be acceptable to expose them to
the same training risks and regime as recruits above the age of
18?
Ms Caldwell: You would start with
your selection procedures first. Are your selection procedures
tailored to your needs? For example, we as an organisation obviously
recruit and train inspectors and we now have selection procedures.
We have given job specifications and have psychometric testing
to ensure that we are getting people into our organisation that
we think are going to be suitable for the task. I would expect
the same thing to occur in Army training. Once you have recruited
people in, what you need to be able to do during training of anybody,
but even more so with young people, is to ensure that the risks
in that training are reduced and that the right amount of supervision
is also applied. It is also important that you not only in a sense
apply selection procedures to recruits, but also to your trainers,
so that you have the right trainers, with the right approach and
with the right competencies. I have already mentioned that there
is a legal requirement, Regulation 19 of the Managing Regulations,
which does require any employer, and that would include MoD, to
look at the particular training they are giving to young people,
to tailor it for their physical and mental maturity and capability.
Q524 Mike Gapes: So the answer to
my question is that it would be different for those under 18 from
that for those over 18.
Ms Caldwell: Yes, in that particular
element. There is that precise requirement to look at that.
Q525 Mike Gapes: Does European legislation
influence your work in any way? If it does, how would that affect
the military training?
Ms Caldwell: The answer is yes,
because there are health and safety directives which have to be
implemented. Those directives would be implemented in regulations
under the Health and Safety at Work Act and then would apply to
all work places. Unless there was an exemption, they would apply
to the Ministry of Defence and training establishments.
Q526 Mr Jones: May I turn to the
issue of firearms? Obviously you cannot have Armed Forces without
firearms, but you will be aware that in civilian establishments
where firearms are used there are very clear regulations. From
my experience at Sellafield, where they have an armed police force,
there are quite tight regulations as to how firearms are carried
on site and also how they interact with civilians. What measures
should be taken at an Armed Forces training establishment to ensure
that access to firearms and the use of firearms is made as safe
as possible? Do you have any experience of investigating deaths
where firearms have been involved?
Ms Caldwell: Yes. The only guidance
we have issued on firearms is on the use of shotguns by farmers.
That said, because we have had occasion to, because we have investigated
incidents involving shootings, we have looked at MoD's own guidance
on firearms and find it very comprehensive. The incidents we have
actually investigated fall into two categories: either those systems
and procedures have for some reason or another not been applied,
or there has been an unusual circumstance in which the individual
has been injured. For example, one area we were looking at and
now the MoD are looking at was the design of a safety catch. A
gun went off in an environment where it would not have been expected
to go off. We pursued that and the MoD are looking at the design
of the safety catch.
Q527 Mr Cran: You have already made
it very clear to us that the HSE has powers to investigate serious
accidents at MoD bases and that is correct, is it not?
Ms Caldwell: Yes.
Q528 Mr Cran: The Committee would
be interested to know how many incidents such as these have been
reported by each of the wings of the Armed Forces in, let us say,
the last five years. Is that a set of statistics you could provide
for us?
Ms Caldwell: I could not provide
them now, but I shall provide whatever data I can.
Q529 Mr Cran: That would be very
gratefully received. At the same time could you include what type
of accidents they have been? Is there a theme to all of this?
Are they the same type of accidents? Are they quite random? That
would be helpful for us too.[4]
Ms Caldwell: Okay. Do you want
accidents just to Army personnel? We also have responsibility
for all the civilian workforce of MoD and we have a lot of information.
Q530 Mike Gapes: As much as you can
give us and we will decide what we need for our report.
Ms Caldwell: Okay.
Q531 Mr Cran: At the same time, it
would be very helpful for us to know how many of these incidents
resulted in Crown improvement notices or Crown censure notices,
if any. Maybe none of them did. If they did, we should like to
know.
Ms Caldwell: I can also provide
another piece of data. I mentioned the Crown prohibition notices
and the Crown improvement notices. We also have another administrative
procedure which is called a Crown censure. Crown censures are
used in situations where we would normally think there was sufficient
evidence for us to take a prosecution in a criminal court. If
in establishments which have Crown immunity we find sufficient
evidence that if Crown immunity had not been there we would have
gone to court, we have a system called Crown censures. We actually
bring the senior management in from whatever public body it is
and lay before them our evidence and get their response to it
and agreement to the recommendations we would make. The MoD will
publish in their records when they have had a Crown censure, so
I can also provide you with details of Crown censures over the
last five years, if that would be helpful to you.[5]
Q532 Mr Cran: Superb; that is what
we should like. Please. Just a general question which in a way
you have answered before but it has been in the middle of all
sorts of other answers and I just want to disentangle it all.
Take the question of initial training establishments. I just want
to get a sense from you of how the MoD have reacted to any recommendations
which you may have made to them for improvements, to the systems
or whatever.
Ms Caldwell: In the briefing I
have, but I will check for you, I cannot recollect anything which
says they have not responded in a way we would expect them to.
Q533 Mr Cran: Is it possible therefore
for you to confirm to us how many recommendations you have made
over a reasonable time period, that is one which is reasonable
for you and is not going to result in undue expense and all that?
Ms Caldwell: May I say that I
will give you examples of the type of recommendations we have
made? Is that acceptable?
Mr Cran: It is not like 100%, but if
that is what you can give us, we will have a look and if we want
more we will come back to you.
Q534 Mike Gapes: May I take you back
to an earlier answer you gave? In this context of European legislation
and health and safety at work directives, what would happen in
the case of a conflict between a European directive and MoD training
policy and practice? Would Crown immunity just come in and that
be the situation, or not?
Ms Caldwell: We would treat it
in the same way we negotiate with the MoD when we are developing
any set of regulations. We start from the basis that they should
be applied and that MoD need to make the case to us for an exemption
to be made. I have not come across that type of conflict. Usually
if it is a conflict like that, there would be a more generic conflict
in other work places.
Q535 Mike Gapes: Perhaps we can look
at that again later. Final question I think. It has been a very
long session for us as a Committee and hopefully we can conclude
with this one. The attitude of the Armed Forces to health and
safety issues. You have said that they are doing things they do
not actually have to do and that they are complying with things
even though they have immunity. Do you have a general overview
on how the services interpret and implement health and safety
policy generally and how they asses and manage risk to recruits
under training?
Ms Caldwell: I would make a comparison
really with other work places. We would say that we certainly
have the commitment from the top. We would certainly say that
MoD put a lot of resource into their central consultative function.
On occasions, however, there will be failures of application of
their systems and procedures. That is no different from any work
place where you have commitment from the chief executive and the
board and trying to get that same commitment in a large organisation
right down to your field force is quite a challenge. It is down
to ensuring that you establish the right safety culture, that
those in that management command actually do take health and safety
seriously and are seen to take health and safety seriously. Let
us look at bullying for example. The type of thing you would be
looking for would be to ensure that there is clarity on what is
acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and that anybody in the
command structure, seeing unacceptable behaviour, would actually
act to stop it rather than just walk by. It is trying to get that
in such a large organisation as the MoD which is a real challenge
to them. It is a challenge which is not unique to the MoD I can
assure you.
Q536 Mike Gapes: Therefore what do
instructors and people lower down the Chain of Command need to
know and what training do they need in order to ensure that they
are able to contribute effectively to providing a safe training
environment for recruits? What should they be looking for to check
that they are assessing risk appropriately and addressing issues
which come up?
Ms Caldwell: It comes down to
the ability to carry out a risk assessment. Trainers need to understand
that the risk they need to control is the risk of the activity
they are trying to train people in, the risks associated with
applying that training and the risks associated with the environment
or the premises in which that training is taking place. A lot
of that can be done by tailored risk assessments which would be
used routinely, but there will be occasions when they actually
need to have the ability to recognise that it is a dynamic situation
and the situation has changed and they need to be able to assess
that risk. This is the point about making sure that the trainers
are trained themselves.
Q537 Mike Gapes: Absolutely. Thank
you Ms Caldwell and Ms Gyngell. Do you have anything else you
would like to add that you do not think we have touched on?
Ms Caldwell: The only point you
might want to be aware of, because you tackled me a little bit
on the issue of resources, is that the DWP Select Committee has
been looking at HSE's activities. The Chairman of the Commission
and the Director General of the HSE appeared before them on 11
May. You might want to have some discussions with them. I just
thought that might be helpful.
Mike Gapes: I am sure we will have a
look at the transcript. Thank you very much and thank you for
coming and giving us a most useful session this afternoon.
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