When being over-cautious can increase risk
What happened?
This case study is stretching the concept of a near miss a little far, but is a good one to include as it demonstrates how an arguably over-cautious approach to safety management increased the risk rather than decreased it.
I was carrying out an audit type assessment of a leisure centre’s operation, systems, standards, that sort of thing. When having a look at their sports hall store where the tramps and crash mats were, I noticed, tucked away and almost out of sight, a ladder.
This prompted questions about frequency of ladder checks, competency of the checker, how the checks were documented etc. Turns out that this particular ladder, a wooden ladder no less, had none of these in place – it was a secret ladder that only the staff knew about.
Why? The leisure centre manager was so hot on ladder safety and the risks of falling from height, that staff could only use ladders to carry out work, even the most basic work, with his written permission at the time. The leisure centre manager was, understandably, not at work all the time, and the staff knew they occasionally needed the use of a ladder when his express permission could not be sought, such as evenings, weekends and holidays. So they had one of their own, which the manager didn’t know about!
Legal Outcome
N/A, although had something happened, it would have been interesting to see how it played out.
What can we learn from what happened?
This really happened. It is probably a poor reflection of the manager’s faith, or lack of faith, in his duty managers that he felt they couldn’t be trusted to carry out a task using a ladder. But that aside, it is an example of how the human mind will conjure up short cuts and ways of improvising.
What also struck me was that the manager couldn’t have looked around his leisure centre very often or very thoroughly – if I could find the secret ladder then I am sure he could have.
Source of Information
Personal experience of author