02.03.2006

Oops we changed the date

The draft British Standard for the delivery of training for work at height is currently out for comment. The original drafts carried a date of March 31 2006 for the submission of any comments and suggested amendments.

Now it seems that in order to rush the draft through in time to be published for a conference in May, the BSI is moving the goalposts. It says that it had always intended the cut off date for input to be February 28th, but that an error was made and the drafts that were sent out carried the deadline of March 31.

The BSI has scheduled a meeting of the drafting group for March 20th, during which it will consider all comments and suggestions, in spite of the fact that there may be a good number of interested parties preparing detailed submissions for the original end of March deadline!

In a modest concession we understand that BSI will accept any comments that are received by March 17th.

Why the uncharacteristic, some might say undignified, haste? Because “the technical committee specially asked for the published document to be ready for the AIF conference”

Vertikal Comment

This is the first time we have ever heard of an Institution making such a preposterous statement as “Although we said that date what we really meant was this date”!
And all because it will be nice to have it ready for a particular conference.

Surely a British Standard is something that must be carefully researched and crafted, with the maximum amount of input at every stage so that it can stand the test of time and be a practical working guide to best practice?

If having the final document at this conference is so critical, surely it is not beyond the wit of man to condense the publication period by a couple of weeks or provide the conference with photocopies. Rather than arbitrarily change a published deadline and potentially risk ignoring some quality input?

BSI must surely rethink this if it is to retain the respect of the access industry.