The winds of change are blowing through the world of occupational health and safety. Freeing enterprise, especially small and low risk businesses from the ‘burden of regulation’ has been a significant theme for the coalition government.[1] This article provides an overview of the changes.
Common sense, common safety
Prior to Lord Young’s somewhat ignominious departure from the political stage, he was commissioned by the government to investigate and make recommendations to ‘fix’ health and safety. His main targets: the UK’s compensation culture and excessive bureaucracy.[2]
The main recommendations of his report were:
- changes to compensation claims, with restrictions on advertising for ‘no win, no fee’ arrangements and changes in the way personal injury claims are handled;
- the simplification of risk assessment procedures for “low-hazard” workplaces, such as offices, classrooms and shops;
- new professional standards for health and safety consultants with accreditation and a web-based directory of accredited consultants;
- consolidation of health and safety regulations into ‘a single set of accessible regulations’;
- changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR), including extending the ‘over three-day’ injury period to seven days;
- a new consultation to improve the role of the Health and Safety Executive in dealing with large companies; and
- combining food safety and health and safety inspections in local authorities.
Consultant accreditation
The HSE was already in discussions with a number of health and safety bodies about how a voluntary accreditation scheme should be established. The Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR) was launched on 31 January 2011 and is open only to those consultants who are members of certain professional bodies who primarily deal with general health and safety risk management.
The standard which has been set for competency is a degree level qualification, a minimum of two years’ experience and engagement with a continuing professional development scheme. This means that the consultant usually has to have chartered, fellow or registered member status at one of the organisations.
OSHCR is, in effect, a scheme to register all those consultants who have been assessed and accredited by their professional body as having achieved a set standard. Any complaints about an individual’s performance will be handled by the relevant professional body and may result in their removal from the register.
Accident reporting
In January 2011 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launched a consultation about extending the periods during which an injury or accident is reported from three to seven days.[3] If introduced, this would mean that a RIDDOR report would only need to be sent if a worker was incapacitated for work for more than seven consecutive days (excluding the day of the accident but including any days that would not have been working days, in other words the weekend).
The HSE does not envisage the introduction of this proposal as having any adverse effects on business and in fact it aligns now with the fit note scheme. It is expected to be in place by autumn 2011.
Online risk assessment
The HSE has also provided online risk assessment tools for low-risk work environments, such as offices, and is in the process of creating a similar tool for other environments.
However, it relies heavily on the person completing the risk assessment to know what procedures should be put in place. While a helpful tool, the online assessment is not the panacea that perhaps Lord Young would have wished for.
The risk assessment tools have already been attacked by the IOSH and others as a ‘tick box’ assessment. In addition, the all party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health has warned the HSE ‘not to over simplify the risk assessment process in relation to small businesses and low-risk organisations … as inadequate risk assessment could also give rise to a false sense of security among employers and their workforces’.
Spending review implications
Shortly after the introduction of Lord Young’s report, the government announced its Comprehensive Spending Review which set the HSE a target to achieve savings of at least 35% by the year 2014 — amounting to savings of between £80m to 85m.[4] It therefore appeared to many commentators that the ambition to reform health and safety, i.e. to make it more proportionate and reasonable, did not sit happily with the proposed cuts.
In particular, the all party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health produced a report setting out what it believes the spending cuts will mean for the HSE and health and safety in general.[5] It describes the cuts as ‘a false economy’ and stated that the HSE will not be able to maintain its current level of operations with a cut of 35% in government contributions. It also points out that HSE activity is likely to fall even in industries with high accident rates, such as construction, as spending in the nuclear sector and other hazardous industries is likely to increase over the period.
A balanced perspective
It is clear that the government has a great appetite for business regulation reform. A combination of a simplified approach in perceived low risk environments and spending cuts within HSE suggest that it is possible to relax health and safety standards, particularly in low risk, small business environments. This however would be a mistake, as the existing legislative framework (both criminal and civil law) is still in place — the main duties of care towards employees and others are still in place.
It should also be borne in mind that it is not only enforcing bodies who are interested in how a business manages health and safety but also insurance companies, who can offer reduced premiums to safer companies and clients, to whom it is important to ensure that their service/product suppliers are operating safely.
Finally we need to remember that lives are saved and injury/ill health prevented by action, not paperwork: health and safety is ultimately about sensible risk management, not total risk aversion.
[1] Such as Lord Hodgson’s report published on 17 May, Unshackling Good Neighbours.
[2] www.number10.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/402906_CommonSense_acc.pdf
[3] www.hse.gov.uk/press/2011/hse-riddor.htm
[4] The EEF take on this can be viewed at www.eef.org.uk/hseblog/post/Health-and-Safety-Executive-funding-cut-by-a-third.aspx
[5] www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/t/0/hsecuts_allpartygroupreport.pdf