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Young James Tye, Director General of the British Safety Council in London, is 61 years old this year and, evidently, as safe as houses, if the vernacular is to be believed.

James Tye, Director‐General of the British Safety Council, explains the concept of risk management as it has developed in America, and predicts that within the next ten years it will, become an integral part of British management thinking also. Mr. Tye argues that, contrary to the options of many insurance specialists. the risk manager is better qualified with a safety background,as modern safety thinking shares much common ground with effective risk management techniques.

Fifteen years ago the problem for industrial safety in British industry was how to upgrade gum‐booted and untrained safety officers to the status of fully trained professionals. To this end the British Safety Council introduced a Diploma in Safety Management as the minimum qualification for the control of health and safety at work. The first task was to get companies to professionalise their safety management and, today, the best have done this, but many more have not. According to the British Safety Council in London, the first problem for companies intent on upgrading their safety managers is to ensure that they are trained in the basics of safety management and thereafter to encourage their graduation to risk management because, unlike the men from insurance backgrounds who have been traditionally responsible for risk management, those trained in safety are better qualified to assess and prevent risk rather than to transfer it to the insurers. For post‐diploma safety managers, the British Safety Council runs the only Risk Management Certification Course in Europe.

While more regulations governing the transport of dangerous chemicals are due to come into force later this year, some critics claim there is still too much reliance on voluntary emergency schemes. Mindful of some of the hair‐raising accidents which have happened in the past, they are calling for standardized identity markings, the elimination of ‘cowboy’ drivers and stricter monitoring of a vehicle's movements. Report by Paul Whiting

Haverhill‐based Kemira Coatings, a leading manufacturer of factory applied coatings for wood, has been awarded four stars under the British Safety Council Five Star rating for safety in the workplace, by the Council's director general, James Tye.

Red … stop … amber … watch out … green … go. Every child learns these basic safety colours by heart and motorists react instinctively when they flash up on traffic lights. But few people are aware that colours are also in use in industry and that, from January 1st next year, Britain's workplaces will be required by law to make sure all their safety signs and colours conform to a European standard.

Risk management has outgrown its insurance origins and must become more professional in the present and future harsh economic climate. Britain's Association of Insurance Risk Managers would seem to agree for they are calling for a more professional attitude and better training for the 550 so‐called risk managers in the UK. Their greatest weakness is that, having been recruited from and worked in insurance, they have too limited and sectarian a view of the discipline control and financing of risks.

HOW many British firms are simply lining the pockets of the insurance industry whilst lacking the expertise to recognise the real risks which threaten them? In my experience of British industry, I find that many firms are insured for the wrong risks whilst major risks are unrecognised, uncontrolled and uninsured.

Relatively few British companies have had to withstand earthquakes, floods, building collapse or the kidnapping of top executives; but all are fighting against risks whose effects can be equally devastating. Some of these have been identified and measured. The country's annual accident bill totals a staggering £2.5 billion, employee theft eats up £650 million of industry's assets each year, and fire damage in 1979 amounted to more than £320 million. This figure does not include consequential loss, or loss of exports and production. But there are thousands of other risks faced by industry each day — some so familiar that managers do not even recognise the potential threat they pose. Recognising the need for a comprehensive strategy to deal with them, American industry is rapidly developing risk management as its newest and most powerful managerial discipline.

The meteoric growth of Risk Management in the last ten years in the USA is now starting to be experienced in Europe. This is because cost conscious companies instead of having different departments dealing with identifying risks, measuring risk, controlling risks, or financing risks either externally or through self insurance, are now realising that their real objective is one of CONSERVING ALL RESOURCES. What is the distinction — often overlooked — between hazard and risk? What do we understand by pure and speculative risks?