From the Secretary's desk

As we look forward to a General Election it is to be hoped that the need to repay the fiscal deficit does not mean less attention to occupational health and safety. Perhaps the increases in political pressures has caused an over-enthusiastic attention on general public safety issues and the cynical reportage in the media exposing some of the more ridiculous decisions taken by managers. It is interesting that most of the pressures creating these incompetent decisions come from insurers. A lack of attention to reality and a blind insistence on using risk statistics rather than making any judgement of the actual risks involved, places mangers in to position of "comply or risk your insurance cover".

Over the next few months, the BSIF will be firmly focussed on occupational safety. The recent public launch of the 'Clean Air? - Take Care!' campaign, jointly mounted by the BSIF and the HSE with other industry stakeholder, and the Fit2Fit accreditation scheme will ensure that respiratory protection is at the top of our members' agendas for a while. To this will be added a major awareness campaign to support the BSIF's Registered Safety Supplier scheme. Specifically aimed at helping users of PPE and other safety equipment, the campaign aims to provide simple and easy to follow guidance on how to avoid rogue products that do not comply with regulations or their own performance claims. From the increased level of information being received daily by the BSIF InfoDesk, it is clear that these rogue products exist, that suppliers are inventing ever more ingenious ways of trying to circumvent their regulatory responsibilities purely to "make a buck" and that the original estimate of some 20,000 accidents each year might be an under-estimate.

There has been little progress with the revised PPE Directive over the past few months and the limitations of the current Directive are now being exposed. Currently, there are a number of unrelated situations where there is a need for standards to be updated and an even greater need for this to be carried out more speedily than the current three to five year, administratively hog-tied, process will allow. While terms such as "presumption of conformity" and "harmonised standards" are clearly defined, decisions are now being made at the EU Commission which compromise the regulatory framework in an attempt to overcome this problem. The BSIF hopes that these issues will be addressed this month at a long-overdue Brussels meeting.

As the main sponsor of the exhibition, the BSIF is busily preparing for the Safety & Health Expo in May at the NEC and we look forward to meeting you there.

The BSIF would be pleased to receive readers comments on any of the issues raised within these pages, through the editor please.

Geoff Hooke
Secretary General to the BSIF