Cameron Appoints Health And Safety Criminal As Whitehall Axeman

Controversial former BP boss Lord Browne is to be appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as a Government ‘super director’ and his job will be use to use Tesco tactics to bring ruthless business methods into Whitehall departments in order to wield the axe and save billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Lord Browne, has been asked by David Cameron to lead a new team of entrepreneurs who will sit on the boards of Government departments.

Cost cutter Lord Browne is no stranger to controversy. He resigned as BP chairman in 2007 after being caught lying to a court. This controversy followed shortly after publication of an investigation report in to the explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring 170, one of the worst industrial accidents in US history.

The blast caused extensive damage to the refinery – BP’s largest – and left production crippled. BP were found to have a slapdash attitude towards safety. After the accident the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found 301 safety violations relating to the explosion and hit BP with a $21-million fine – the largest in the agency’s history. More than 1700 lawsuits were launched and BP has set aside $1.6 billion for claims. The accident investigation team chair revealed that investigators were “absolutely terrified” by the poor safety culture at the refinery.

Investigators found that Lord Browne's cost cutting had created worker fatigue and failure by BP chiefs to address repeated safety warnings. Safety training at the refinery had been cut and staff cuts had left safety operations undermanned. The refinery was found to be in serious need of repair. Investigators found that staff were discouraged from reporting safety problems and managers at the plant completed paperwork and 'ticked-off' safety policy compliance and safety procedural requirements even though none had been done. The Oil giant blatantly ignored repeated safety warnings. Despite serious safety deficiencies at the Texas City plant, under Browne's direction BP slashed budgets by a quarter between 1999 and 2005, even though large parts of the refinery were in disrepair and unsafe. Investigators concluded that Cost-cutting by BP left the Texas City refinery vulnerable to a catastrophe. In response the BP board announced that it accepted responsibility for the incident.

Two years earlier in 2003, a series of management failures were responsible for life-threatening accidents at BP's Grangemouth complex in the UK, another official report found. The report found standards had been allowed to slip, managers had not detected "deteriorating performance" and had failed to abide by the law! BP was prosecuted for the failures and fined more than £1m.

Lord Browne was rewarded for his safety failures by being one of the highest paid UK executives with a salary and bonus of £6.3 million and the previous year as part of his retirement deal he received a £22 million pension pot and more than UK £1 million a year as retirement income. Not bad for the cigar-puffing boss who some say should have been sacked with nothing and thrown in jail for safety violations. - He's now turned up with a job from David Cameron in Downing Street!

Browne's successor, Tony Hayward, is currently under fire over BP’s attempts to contain the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

CWU National Health and Safety Officer Dave Joyce commented:

"This is further bad news. People will begin to see what they've voted for shortly. BP's reputation was ruined by greed, arrogance and aggressive tactics and the ruthless determination by Browne's BP board to put production before safety which ultimately cost the lives of workers. With Browne's history and tarnished reputation, it's a strange choice by Cameron. It would have perhaps been better to leave Lord Browne to spend his time counting the proceeds of his BP pay-off and pension while basking in his stately home gardens."  

Source: CWU