Memorandum from the Centre for Hazard
and Risk Management (CHaRM)
1. I am responding as Director of the Centre
for Hazard and Risk Management (CHaRM) at Loughborough University,
concerning the work of the centre which may be seen as relevant
to the inquiry. CHaRM is an interdisciplinary centre concerned
with occupational and organisation risk management on a very wide
basis in the UK and overseas. The centre's work involves post-experience
education and training in risk management, largely at postgraduate
level and with an emphasis on part-time qualification courses,
backed by applied research and consultancy.
2. CHaRM's academic staff include myself,
Dr David Wenham, Dr Alistair Cheyne, Mrs Deborah Walker, Mr Tom
Mulhall and Mr Mike Fray. Dr Wenham leads our course programme
in the area of occupational health and safety, while Tom Mulhall
directs our security management course programme. Mrs Walker leads
on health and safety management research, supported by Dr Cheyne,
while I cover environmental risk management, and professional
development research, and Mike Fray focuses on risk control in
the field of manual handling.
3. The CHaRM team cover a wide range of
disciplines from chemistry to occupational psychology and have
been pioneers in establishing important modern branches of risk
management, including risk assessment, safety culture and climate,
and behavioural safety. They have extremely wide work experience,
and have acted as risk management consultants and trainers to
a huge variety of work organisations across the private and public
sectors over the past 30 years.
4. CHaRM staff have up-to-date insights
into the work, organisational structures and cultures of the Armed
Forces since we continually recruit students from this background.
Only very recently we have recruited six members of the SAS onto
our security management programme to enable them to qualify to
Diploma/Masters level in this field before leaving the Army. I
have, myself, recently attended public invitation presentations
in the East Midlands by all three Armed Forces focussed on their
roles, but especially on the challenges they face around recruitment,
selection and induction of young people.
5. I have followed the issues around the
deaths of young soldiers at Deepcut barracks at a distance, through
the serious press. From this distance it has seemed to me that
these deaths are likely to be indicative of deep seated structural,
cultural and behavioural problems in the Armed Services in regard
to the induction and development of young people. If this is the
case then there will be no "quick fix" solution coming
out of the Defence Committee's inquiry. There will be a need for
research to identify the hazards and risks faced by these young
people and those who supervise their development. This research
will need to address hazards and risks which can be reduced by
means of technological improvements, by improvements in systems
of work to reduce risks, and by behavioural changes throughout
the Armed Services aimed at reducing health and safety risks.
There will be a need for much training and development in the
Armed Forces arising from this research.
6. CHaRM has a great deal of expertise in
conducting risk assessments in regard to all types of occupational
risks in work organisations, from machinery hazards to occupational
stress. We are also able to propose risk reduction strategies
covering physical controls, safe systems of work and behavioural
safety improvements.
We are able to move from these proposals to
organise management and professional training to help work organisations
with the implementation of risk reduction plans. This training
emphasises the principles of hazard identification, risk assessment
risk control measures and their selection, the implementation
of control measures, monitoring of their effectiveness and feedback
to further assessment and control. The training is always set
in the context of the work organisation to ensure that the relevance
is perceived by trainees. The management of change features largely
in the training programmes as unwillingness to change is most
commonly the biggest barrier to improvements in risk management.
7. Many of our clients are especially taxed
by the issue of how to develop their inexperienced, often young
recruits to handle higher risk work without putting them at significant
risk in the process. In the university world we are faced with
this issue daily, given the flood of young people into our laboratories
and workshops each year. All the work that we carry out is placed
in the context of the Health and Safety at Work Act, with its
requirement to reduce risks as far as is reasonably practicable.
We argue that the risks to young, inexperienced people at work,
or in training for work, is always higher than for older, more
experienced people at work, and that risks control strategies
must be orientated towards the knowledge, understanding, perceptions,
values, attitudes and behaviours of these young people. There
is a considerable onus on those responsible for their development
to be closely attuned to these parameters at all times, so they
must be trained in turn on how to ensure this.
8. In summary, I believe that CHaRM is able
to support the inquiry by providing information and advice in
regard to risk management, and in regard to the development of
management and professional competences needed by those controlling
the risk to young trainees in the Armed Forces. I would be willing
to offer oral evidence, if required, in relationship to the matters
outlined above.
Professor Geoff Chivers
Director
April 2004
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