Managing Employer Liability for Employee Stress

Dennis Ashton is a lawyer and manager with many years' practical experience in the public and private sectors. He read law at Cambridge and, after qualifying as a solicitor in 1960, he entered local government working in a number of increasingly senior positions in major authorities. In 1973 he left Liverpool, where he had acted as Parliamentary Solicitor to the City Council and the Mersey Tunnel Authority, and joined a well-known management consultancy. During his two years with them, he helped companies come to terms with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.In 1977, following a brief return to local government in a major city, he became a regional Chief Officer with the Central Electricity Generating Board, with a portfolio that included day-to-day legal advice and the local health and safety policy statement. After a period with similar responsibilities in two regions, he became Field Secretary (North) of the Board. On privatisation he was designated Board Member of the conventional generation business of National Power. He took early retirement in 1990 to set up his own consultancy, which has an extensive health and safety practice. He has lectured for IRST/HASTAM on their National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health Diploma Course since its inception, and is also a visiting tutor at Harrogate College, at Thomas Danby College, Leeds, at North Lincolnshire College and at Middlesbrough College.