Health and Safety Updates

Löfstedt review - refocusing and streamlining Health and Safety

"We must have a system of health and safety which enables employers to make sensible and proportionate decisions about managing genuine workplace risks." 

"Simplifying and streamlining the stock of regulations, focusing enforcement on higher risk businesses, clarifying requirements, and rebalancing the civil litigation system - these are all practical, positive steps."

"Poor regulation - that which adds unnecessary bureaucracy with no real benefits - drives out confidence in good regulation."

"We welcome these reforms because they are good for workers and employers but also for the significant contribution they will make to restoring the rightful reputation of real health and safety."

The Independent Regulatory Challenge Panel

"The Independent Regulatory Challenge Panel will look into complaints regarding advice given by HSE or LA inspectors about health and safety which you think is incorrect or goes beyond what is required to control the risk adequately."

"The panel will consist of independent members who will have the competence and experience to assess advice that has been given on regulatory matters."

"Before you raise an issue with the panel, you should have first tried to resolve the matter with the relevant HSE or LA inspector and their manager."

What to expect

"Your issue will be put before the panel members who will review it thoroughly and inform you of its findings. The panel will only consider cases from 30 June 2011 onwards and the outcome will be made available on the HSE website. The panel’s role is advisory. The regulators will  respect the independence of the panel and its advice and where appropriate take it onboard."

CD235 - HSE proposal for extending cost recovery

"This consultation sets out the HSE proposal to replace the Health and Safety (Fees) Regulations 2010 to reinstate existing fees and to extend the range of activities for which HSE recovers costs. In addition to reinstating existing fees the proposed Fees Regulations would place a duty on HSE to recover costs where dutyholders are found to be in material breach of health and safety law.  Costs will be recovered from the start of the intervention where the material breach was identified, up to the point where HSE’s intervention in supporting businesses in putting matters right has concluded."

"The underlying policy of recovering costs for HSE’s interventions through the introduction of fees where there is a material breach of the law has been agreed by Government and is therefore not in question in this consultation. Instead this consultation document is intended to elicit views on how HSE would recover the costs of the work it undertakes."

CD233 - Proposed amendment to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR)

"This consultation sets out the amendment to regulation 3(2) of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) proposed by Lord Young in his report "Common Sense, Common Safety". If adopted, the period of incapacitation after which an injury to a person at work must be reported to the enforcing authority, will change from over three to over seven days. It seeks views on the proposal itself and on the impacts that it would have if it became law."

Health and safety statistics

Key annual figures 2010/11 issued by the HSE

1.2 million working people were suffering from a work-related illness.

171 workers killed at work.

115 000 injuries were reported under RIDDOR.

200 000 reportable injuries (over 3 day absence) occurred (LFS).

26.4 million working days were lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury.

Workplace injuries and ill health (excluding cancer) cost society an estimated £14 billion (in 2009/10)