Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 54
1 A. Just to explain, Andrew worked for the Accident
2 Prevention Advisory Unit of HSE. That particular unit was
3 just interested in working with national companies from
4 this, like, corporate standpoint, so it would save each
5 individual Environmental Health Officer going to them. So,
6 no, the rest of the catering industry did not come up in
7 the conversation. I suppose there would be a limited
8 number of other organisations large enough for them to be
9 interested in the catering industry, certainly none of our
10 competitors in the take-away sector.
11
12 Q. Was he concerned that the take-away catering sector --
13 I think that is the word you used -- in his report, that
14 there these kinds of accidents that happen at McDonald's,
15 it was something that applied to the whole sector, there
16 was concern about the level of certain kinds of accidents
17 and safety in general?
18 A. No, he did not mention any specific type of accidents
19 at all. It was, yes, as I said previously, some
20 Environmental Health Officers had approached him about
21 specific accidents. The specific accidents were never
22 disclosed to us, so I do not know which ones.
23
24 Q. Not just for McDonald's, but for other companies as well?
25 A. No, this was McDonald's. This was their approach in
26 the Health and Safety Executive but Andrew Foster, from
27 memory anyway, never mentioned to me they were concerned
28 over a particular category of accident in McDonald's.
29
30 Q. I am trying to identify whether he fixed on McDonald's
31 because he thought they might be the worst in the catering
32 industry or take-away catering section, or whether he
33 thought the catering take-away catering sector as a whole
34 had a high level of accidents or safety concerns, and they
35 wanted to investigate one particular company as an example?
36 A. I do not think so in that one of the reasons Andrew
37 gave me for coming to us is they wanted to see if they
38 could learn anything from us.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You said that, and the way you put it is they
41 thought that you were good people to start with because you
42 appeared to have a better reporting rate than others and
43 factors like that. In fact, I think what Mr. Morris has
44 also in mind is did the HSE turn its attention to the
45 catering industry, picking you as a good starting point,
46 but did they turn its attention to the catering industry
47 because it was concerned about safety standards in the
48 catering industry, or can you not say?
49 A. I do not think I can say. I cannot remember having
50 that sort of conversation with Andrew, so it would be pure
51 speculation.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: In fact, so the HSE was aware, there had been quite
54 a number of local Environmental Health Officers contacting
55 them?
56 A. Yes, they had.
57
58 Q. A national survey would have been one way of dealing with
59 it, rather than only dealing with it one at a time, kind of
60 think?
