National Britannia SafeContractor vs HSE Workplace Health Connect

As mentioned in previous post we are having some trouble renewing our National Britannia SafeContractor accreditation after revamping our Health & Safety procedures under guidance from the Health & Safety Executive (under their oddly-named "Workplace Health Connect" programme).

We think our new H&S stuff is great: concise and effective. National Britannia basically want us to reinstate all the pages and pages of guff we used to have, which no-one ever read, but which tick all of NatBrit's boxes. But managing safety should be about reducing risk, not ticking boxes.

Here is an example: click here to see the sort of waffle NatBrit would like us to say about working at height. Over 1,000 words of guff.

Now click here to see our version. 150 words of clarity.

Which is more likely to get our handymen to be careful with ladders?

(Ironically, the HSE themselves contract NatBrit to manage their H&S advice line. I've told NatBrit and Workplace Health Connect about this whole palava, hopefully they'll fight it out amongst themselves and our concise, clear, safe documentation will win the day.)