Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has been censured over safety failings that led to the death of a 14-year-old cadet.

Kaylee McIntosh died in August 2007 after becoming trapped beneath the boat she was in when it capsized on Loch Carnan in bad weather.

A Health and Safety Executive investigation found a series of serious failings by Major George McCallum, who was leading the boating trip, compounded by systemic organisational failings by MOD Army.

The chartered body for health and safety professionals has welcomed a call by parliamentarians to allow adequate time for consultations on Government policy.

Ministers are looking at slashing the time allowed for organisations to comment on some proposed law changes, from 12 weeks to as little as two. The aim is to make the consultation process more productive.

But the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is among prominent organisations to criticise the plan. It would “counterproductive”, said IOSH, because it could stop stakeholders submitting evidence on important proposals on legislation.

A campaign launched at the start of Road Safety Week is appealing to drivers and authorities in Scotland to GO 20, to bring about a 2012 legacy of safe walking and cycling.

Brake, the road safety charity, is appealing to drivers to slow down to 20mph or below in communities, and calling for widespread 20mph limits in built up areas.

According to Brake, children are affected by danger from fast traffic in a number of ways, including:

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has recently published provisional statistics on workplace ill-health and injury in Scotland in 2011/12.

The figures show that:

• There were 9,551 reported injuries to employees in 2011/12 compared to 10,216 in 2010/11, a fall of 7%.
• 64,000 people said they were suffering from an illness caused or made worse by their work, down from 77,000 in 2010/11.
• 20 workers were fatally injured - up from 14 the previous year. The average for the past five years was 23 worker deaths per year.

The HSE has also revealed that in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available across the EU, the standardised rate of work-related fatal injury excluding traffic accidents was 0.59 per 100,000 workers in GB, the second lowest in the EU.

Lawyers have called for “sanity” in the national whiplash debate after claims dropped by 24,000 in the last year.

An independent survey, commissioned by the not-for-profit Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) also found that almost 40% of people who have suffered a whiplash injury have never claimed compensation for it.

The new information “injects some sanity into a national debate characterised by overblown and inaccurate rhetoric,” said APIL president Karl Tonks.