Day 127 - 23 May 95 - Page 16


     
     1        A.  We have a restaurant safety audit that includes Area
     2        Supervisors, Restaurant Managers and people working for me,
     3        just following up on inspections, people's behaviour and
     4        the management systems in the stores.
     5
     6   Q.   So if they go into a store on an audit, the first question,
     7        do they go in announced or unannounced?
     8        A.  My people do them unannounced.
     9
    10   Q.   When they go there do they interview people?
    11        A.  They would do as part of the middle section, the
    12        section looking at following procedures, yes.
    13
    14   Q.   Do they look at the accident book?
    15        A.  Yes, they do, yes, to see that it is being properly
    16        used and they would ask the management if they are looking
    17        at the trends and discussing them.
    18
    19   Q.   Do they look at any incident report form carbons which may
    20        be in the restaurant?
    21        A.  They would look to see they were being filled in, yes.
    22
    23   Q.   When you were appointed what were you given to understand
    24        were the reasons for creating this new post?
    25        A.  Just before I was appointed, some new regulations come
    26        out driven by the EEC, and it really was a bit of a change,
    27        really, in the way that we managed safety here in the UK
    28        from a legal stand point, in that these new regulations had
    29        risk assessment as their basis which really had not come
    30        into the way that people managed safety before.
    31
    32   Q.   Right.  Can you pause there, please, because this may be
    33        important.  Explain to us (in case we do not understand it)
    34        what is meant by "risk assessment" and how it was, as you
    35        put it, a new approach?
    36        A.  I suppose in the past the way that safety was monitored
    37        in all organisations was to look at accident statistics.
    38        The problem with those is that accidents, as many of us
    39        know through experience, the outcome of a accident is often
    40        down to luck and, therefore, they might not give you a true
    41        reflection of what are the real dangers in any business.
    42
    43        Also, your accident statistics depend on how well your
    44        recording and reporting procedures are.  We are all human
    45        and I am afraid, even in the best organisations, I am sure
    46        that the recording is not 100 per cent, but the beauty of
    47        risk assessment is that you look to see what could happen.
    48        So you will look out for dangers in the restaurant.  You
    49        will look out for hazards; for example, chemicals that are
    50        being used or the use of ladders. 
    51 
    52        You will then look at who is exposed to that hazard, who is 
    53        involved; is it employees?  Is it the same employee, is it
    54        all over?  You also look at how frequently they come across
    55        that hazard.  Those three together will give you some idea
    56        of what the risk is.  For example, if you have a bottle of
    57        bleach and it sits on a shelf with top on, there might an
    58        inherent hazard there, but the risk is negligible because
    59        nobody is ever exposed to it; whereas if you have got
    60        something that is happening every day, obviously the risk

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