Day 131 - 06 Jun 95 - Page 63

     
     1   Q.   Safe access to heights?
     2        A.  Yes.
     3
     4   Q.   Safety of fixtures and fittings in customer area.
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  No, my Lord, we stop there.
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  There is some stuff about customers, children and
     9        safety.
    10
    11   THE WITNESS:  What they are saying is, they were not expressed
    12        as a performance standard.  It does not mean to say they
    13        were not being controlled adequately, but it says there was
    14        no written standard.
    15
    16   Q.   Before this report was done, investigated and then
    17        published, what criticisms did you make when asked to
    18        comment by McDonald's about their safety practice in their
    19        stores?  Do you say: "This should not be happening", you
    20        know, "this is unsafe: X-Y-Z"?
         A.  I cannot recall.  I was not consulted in those terms.
    22        Basically, I was looking at their safety management
    23        systems.  I was making response on particular queries.
    24        I was not doing an audit on McDonald's and I had not been
    25        asked to conduct an audit on McDonald's.
    26
    27   Q.   So you were not looking at any practices at all?
    28        A.  Not specifically.  I was not asked to go out and look
    29        at a particular operation, or anything along those lines.
    30        You could argue that the chemicals that we were talking
    31        about involved going out -- which, of course, it did --
    32        going out and looking, but that was basically about us
    33        getting the model together for COSHH assessment, as I have
    34        already mentioned.
    35
    36   Q.   You said about safety culture?
    37        A.  Yes.
    38
    39   Q.   You were concerned to, or asked to advise about the
    40        development of a safety culture at McDonald's?
         A.  I said that is the theme of the HSE book, and I was
    42        certainly asked to advise on developing their safety
    43        management policies.
    44
    45   Q.   So what aspects of developing a safety culture were you
    46        particularly critical of with McDonald's before this report
    47        came out?
    48        A.  I was not particularly critical of any particular
    49        aspect.  I was asked for input on particulars things.  If a
    50        company comes to me and says: "How can we better do this 
    51        system", I will show them how they could set it out better, 
    52        I will show them what documentation is needed.  It does not 
    53        necessarily mean to say that I will do an audit and make a
    54        criticism of the company.  I am sure if I had been asked in
    55        similar terms, I could have come up with the sort of
    56        document the HSE did, but that was not my brief; that was
    57        not what I was doing.
    58
    59   Q.   So, in other words, before this document was compiled and
    60        from when you started to the time the document was