Dear Miriam

Although I signed on for the 'discussion group' I am a little concerned
that Health and Safety has been sidelined.
I understood that the purpose of the Palatine event 'An Inspector Falls'
was to broaden the debate within the academic as well as the technical
community. What appears to have happened is, that with the advent of
'our' discussion group, we are yet again wrestling with the thorny issue
of Health and Safety without the main protagonists, the people who drive
the research, the staff who direct students, the academics who
notionally give students free rein and leave 'somebody else' to play the
bad guy, the one who stops things happening. This last point, as we
discovered, is far from the truth. Those who currently supervise H&S are
pro active facilitators, not the brown coated harbingers of doom and
preachers of restrictive practice that some colleagues fear. 
Within Palatine, the whole community has to take responsibility for its
own health and safety. Any debate should be broadened out to our whole
community, not restricted to the converted.
You ask whether we are shy or too busy, I am just disappointed that
Health and Safety, something that we all have a legal responsibility
for, should be delegated or is that relegated?


Duncan Woodward-Hay
Performance Production Tutor
Theatre and Performance Studies
University of Hull @ Scarborough
 
Tel. 01723 357210