Focus
Questioning performance - the director's essential guide to health, safety and the environment, by David Eves and John Gummer
February 2006
The UK Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has just published Questioning performance - the director's essential guide to health, safety and the environment written by David Eves and by Rt Hon John Gummer MP.
It gives directors all they need to know to discharge their responsibilities properly, and enables them to ask the right questions of their safety teams and understand the answers. There is no other book like this one - this definitive new title gives directors all they need to know about health, safety and the environment. As an individual, as well as their company, directors are legally responsible for managing risks properly and can be held personally liable for the consequences of failure.
Questioning performance will help senior people to gain assurance and discharge their responsibilities properly by enabling them to ask the right questions, understand the answers and see that they and their board take the best decisions about managing health, safety and environmental risks. This book builds a bridge between directors and expert professionals - employed in-house or as consultants - and enables directors to develop effective and productive discussions with health, safety and environment practitioners, managers, trade union officials, safety reps and enforcers. An online update service will be available for this title.
David Eves, former deputy director general and HM chief inspector in the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said: "Directors are responsible for the big picture, and have to ensure that their company will survive and prosper in a harsh, competitive world. They may reach the boardroom with little or no experience of managing risks to health and safety. If they think this is best left to experts while they concentrate on the company's financial success, they do so at their peril." You will be able to master Questioning performance within a few hours, and then use it as a handy reference tool. It contains straight forward explanations of what needs to be done to comply with the law, with clear examples of good practice. The authors speak from experience: David Eves was deputy director of the HSE from 1989 to 2002. He has worked in health and safety for 40 years. John Gummer was Secretary of State for the Environment, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and Minister for Health and Safety at Work during the 1990s.
Why directors and senior managers need this book:
- you have personal responsibilities for health, safety and environment
- your organisation faces a host of legal requirements and liabilities
- your company reputation could suffer if you don't tackle these issues - and you will feel the heat of shareholder and stakeholder pressure, with bottom line consequences
- you need to take on board compelling moral and ethical reasons for getting these issues right
- it's not just about what's happening on your home turf - these issues have significant European and global dimensions
Contents Preview
Part 1 - Management matters
- legal requirements
- enforcement agencies and penalties
- creating a health and safety policy
- monitoring, measuring, benchmarking
- auditing, reviewing, reporting
- environmental management
- major hazards
Part 2 - Hazards and controls A to Z
- common workplace and environmental hazards from asbestos to zoonoses
Part 3 - Headline facts and figures
- major disasters and lessons learned from them
- Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance
- summary of up and coming legislation
- Glossary
Increasingly, company directors are seen to be responsible for the health, safety and environmental record of their businesses," Rt Hon John Gummer MP said. "Customers, shareholders and the wider public know that the profitability and reputation of a company is put at risk when directors do not measure up to these growing expectations."
Eves continued, "Directors who take their responsibilities seriously will want to ensure that their workforce, the general public, their own professional standing and the reputation of their company and brand, are properly protected. We hope that Questioning performance will help them."
Questioning performance - the director's essential guide to health, safety and the environment by David Eves and Rt Hon John Gummer. ISBN 0 901357 37 5. £35.
For more details on this title or to order a copy visit www.iosh.co.uk/books
For further information contact Anne Smart, IOSH media and marketing assistant | Tel: 0116 2573100 | anne.smart@iosh.co.uk