Abstract
The introduction to the proceedings of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2006 seminar on The Economics and Morality of Safety concluded with a list of issues that were “worthy of further exploration”. I have  reduced them to the following questions:
• Why do moral arguments about ‘rights’ persist unresolved?
• Why can risk managers not agree on [...]

Martin Parkinson raises an interesting question (comment on previous post): what should be the reaction to an accident that, a priori, was an extremely low probability event? He suggests that “any attempt to reverse the counterproductive aspects of ‘health and safety culture’ is doomed to failure”. After an accident he argues that most people [...]

(Published in abbreviated form in The Times Higher on 24 August 2007, as “Tide of paranoia swells safety fears needlessly”)
“We are in danger of having a wholly disproportionate attitude to the risks we should expect to run as a normal part of life.” So said the Prime Minister in May 2005. At the highest [...]

Keynote address to OpRisk Europe Conference, 21 March, London:

All risk is subjective. “Risk” is a word that refers to the future, and that exists only in the imagination.
Risk management involves speculating about this future, about things that could go wrong, and about ways of preventing them.
In recent years, in the public sector and throughout the [...]

This question is posed in the title of a symposium to which I have been invited to contribute (organised by Cygnet Health Care – London, 30 November 2006). It is also highly relevant to a staff seminar I have been invited to give at Grendon Prison on 17 November.
A succinct summary of the contentious [...]

On 22 August 2006 Bill Callaghan, Chair of Britain’s Health and Safety Commission (HSC – overseer of the HSE, the Health and Safety Executive) issued a press release entitled: “Get a life”, says HSC”. He announced: “I’m sick and tired of hearing that ‘health and safety’ is stopping people doing worthwhile and enjoyable [...]