IOSH Tells Löfstedt Review No Scope For Health And Safety Cuts

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has responded to Professor Ragnar Löfstedt’s review of health and safety legislation with a stark message: there is no scope for cuts.

Despite this conclusion, however, IOSH says it will also suggest, in its response to the review, that some regulations could be merged, as long as they do not weaken the responsibility employers have to protect their staff from injury and ill health.

The Löfstedt Review was announced by the Minister for Employment, Chris Grayling, in March 2011 and the due date for evidence from key stakeholders was 29 July 2011.

As part of the evidence it is submitting, IOSH says it will also be including the results of a survey canvassing members’ views on current law and its fitness for purpose.

The safety body’s survey questioned its members on whether health and safety legislation imposed an unnecessary burden on business.

IOSH says that almost 50% of respondents suggested regulations that could be merged, but only around a fifth felt any laws could be abolished without negatively impacting people’s safety and health.

In its response, IOSH is also calling for:

• work-related road traffic accidents to be reported under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995
  
• positive directors’ duties to be made explicit in terms of their responsibility to protect staff
  
• general practitioners’ fit notes to include reminders to encourage employers to report work accidents.

Dr Luise Vassie, IOSH’s Executive Director of Policy, said, “We don’t see cuts as the answer — previous reviews of health and safety legislation have already weeded out redundant rules … But we are telling Prof Löfstedt that we see scope for merging some laws.”

Source: IOSH

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