On the 8th May 2006 the Branch held it's fourth technical evening of the 2006 programme at the Mendip House Hotel, Frome. The speaker, Brendan Cleaver of Foster Yeoman gave a presentation entitled "Worker Attitudes, Personality and Risk Propensity".

In broad terms Risk Propensity is an individual's level of comfort with risk. The Hard Target initiative promoted by the HSE and driven by the Quarrying Industry, along with investment and training has proved successful in its objectives. Now that a level has been reached that is becoming increasingly to maintain the same rate of reductions, alternative initiatives need to be encompassed.

Brendan discussed that in his opinion unless the principals of Behavioural safety solutions are tapped into then we will never reach and be able to sustain our ultimate goal.

During a West Country Safety Day held in during 2003 a survey was carried out on 300 Quarry workers to try and establish "Who is the Average Person?" The general conception of a quarry worker having a macho, rough, tough image because of the nature of the business was investigated.

The actual results from the survey indicated that in fact the average Quarry Worker was balanced, not too cautious and not too risky. In fact 0% fell in the tough guy group. Obviously on a small sample a conclusive link of Personality type and risk propensity cannot be guaranteed.

The risk propensity was determined from answers to questions designed to explore how people are motivated in risky situations. It focused on different types of risk such as Physical, Health, Financial, Social and Occupational. Again it was stressed that conclusive links could not be established, but there were some patterns developing. When other factors such as Age, Education and Career Status are added this becomes even more apparent.

To summarise, Brendan reported that although major links could not be shown, there were some "almost" links which could materialise with a much greater sample size. In fact some industries now use behavioural science techniques for recruitment purposes, in order to establish the ideal personality type requirement for an occupation, in the Military, Finance and Transport eg. This fascinating subject matter provoked many questions from the floor which were duly answered.

To conclude the evening a vote of thanks was given by Steve Cole and our appreciation was given in the normal way.

Andy Shakeshaft (West of England Branch Committee member)