Plans to improve health and safety monitoring could be a step too far, engineering industry officials have warned.

The proposals are included in a document drawn up by the Health and Safety Commission which has been looking at ways of improving consultation with employees on health and safety.

One proposed change would be to give shop floor safety representatives the same power as inspectors to demand that a company improve health and safety areas. The proposals also discuss setting up roving employee safety inspectors who would carry out inspections at sites where no representatives were appointed.

Ian Hughes, director of the Engineering Employers' Fed-eration Yorkshire and Humberside which represents firms in the Bradford area, said both proposals were clearly well-intentioned, but contained hidden danger.

He said: "We are unhappy with lay inspectors having the power to issue improvement notices. The appointment of roving safety representatives could involve problems where such a person found themselves inspecting the site of a competitor company.

"Such a potentially difficult conflict of interests has to be avoided. We are equally concerned at proposals to make employers provide representation on their safety committee for contractors and the self-employed. We must never make health and safety adversarial. It must be achieved through co-operation," he added.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.