My thanks to a loyal reader who pointed me to some absurd Nanny nonsense concerning the goings on in Haworth (West Yorkshire) and its church clock at St Michael and All Angels Church, erected (can I say "erected" before 21:00?) in 1863.
For the last 23 years Jens Hislop has climbed the steps of the church several times a week to wind the clock.
Not anymore!
For why?
An insurance inspection declared that Mr Hislop’s stepladder and winding platform - which have been at the church for decades - were unsafe, and the clock has been stuck at 5:20 since February.
Mr Hislop cannot touch the clock again until £1,000 of safety work on the joinery has been carried out!
He is quoted by the Mail:
"I have been looking after the clock for 23 years and it has gone like clockwork. Then we had an insurance assessment and now health and safety has kicked in.As ever, the insurance industry wins!
I personally don’t think it is unsafe. But they say it’s dangerous. The clock is in perfect working order but has been stopped since February. It is crazy.
The platform is only 10ft off the floor and the wooden step ladder was here when I started 23 years ago and is no different now to what it was then."
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I always thought insurance companies were in the business of managing and assessing risk, not completely eliminating risk.
ReplyDeleteThere is a real juxta position regarding insurance and risk; as more and more insurance companies have completely eliminated risk, so policies have got more expensive. Surely, this is the opposite to what one would expect to happen.....No risk, no mishaps, no payouts therefore, premiums should be much cheaper.
It's not so much that insurance companies want to remove all risk, it's that they get lots of kick backs from the consultants and companies who are paid the £1000 or whatever the insurance company demands to be implemented.
ReplyDeleteEveryone wins except the policy holder. The consultant wins in getting paid to do a risk assessment. The safety company wins in getting paid to fix the risk. The insurance company wins in getting paid by the other two for them having got the business through the insurance company's policy terms that demand safety changes.
Everyone, including the exchequer, make money from insurance. I found out only tonight that one of the amateur orchestras I help out now have to have public liability insurance when they do a concert.
ReplyDeleteSadly, all too often, Nanny does indeed appear to act like a gangster, insisting on her cut of the action. In all too many cases, she appears to me, to impose her "share of the action" in the form of a tax, a levy or a license, purely because she can. When one looks at the economics of the nation, there must be billions and billions of pounds just sloshing around inside of Nanny's machine. We even have the crazy situation where one publicly funded body, over sees another publicly funded body, where the latter can fine the former having used another publicly funded body to investigate the first body. This body then refers the case to another publicly funded body to prosecute the first body in a publicly funded court system.....Sheer madness and yet, the sheep keep calling for NHS trusts and other public bodies to be fined!
DeleteTonk: When 'public bodies' do things or fail to do things correctly, fines are no use as the bill is always passed on to the tax payer. What should happen is that the law is changed, so that when such organisations are proved to be negligent, the CEO has to foot the bill.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the above post is concerned, it is high time somebody turned around to these jobsworths and told them to "Get lost!" At the risk of appearing cynical, my feelings are that this has a lot less to do with elf'n'safety and a great deal more to do with extracting money from people and organisations for the privilege of going about their lawful business! KERCHING!
Forgot to add, these elf'n'safety jobsworths and others really wind ME up!
ReplyDeleteMy Lord,
ReplyDeleteThat was the point I was making....We, the taxpayer, always pick up the tab....Make the CEO personally responsible and watch the problems disappear.
Everything is about making money to waste: I received a flyer today, published by our Borough Council....It stated that THEY were funding this "scheme" aided and abetted by Central Nanny....I got on the phone and eventually got the muppet to admit that the council didn't actually have their own money,and that they only had money they extorted from the general population. I know its semantics but it really irritates me the way public bodies tax, spend and waste so much of our hard earned cash and savings.
Mind you, on BBC Cefax, or whatever its now called, ran a story under regional news for Berkshire where they mentioned this position....and I kid you not!....River fly monitoring officer! WTF!!!??