TUC Voices Concern Over Funding Threat To Safety Inspections

The continued attack on health and safety by the Toy led Con-Dem(ned) coalition government is making further news today 8th March, and heralds a year in which the full extent of the break up of health and safety protection for workers will shock even the skeptics.

Commenting about a leaked letter from the HSE which suggests that government spending cuts might force the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to cut unannounced workplace safety inspector visits by up to a third, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

"The possibility of an unexpected visit from either an HSE or a local authority safety inspector helps keep employers on their toes; even now, workplaces can go decades without ever seeing an inspector."

In February, chief executive Geoffrey Podger proposed a reduction in what the HSE calls "proactive inspections". In a letter obtained by the BBC's File on 4 programme, he outlines plans to reduce HSE inspections by a third.

In the BBC News Website Business section the news item reports an HSE spokesperson as saying: "We regularly consult with partner organisations on future ways of working. Discussions do not constitute a final decision so it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time. The emphasis should be on outcomes - the incidence of accidents and ill-health - rather than the number of particular types of inputs by the regulator."

But the evidence to support inspections was discussed in the BBC News report as it quoted Dr Courtney Davis of Sussex University who reviewed the worldwide evidence for the value of proactive inspections, and believes any reduction is likely to have a detrimental impact on worker safety.

"The most robust studies show that inspection plus enforcement are associated with a decline in injury rates of 22% for the following three years," she said.

"The evidence relating to new, soft interventions is much weaker, and almost non-existent.

"It doesn't appear to be the case that these alternatives are effective in improving compliance with health and safety law or injury rates."

But worse is yet to come as the same news item quotes Professor Rory O'Neill, editor of the safety magazine Hazards as believing that the news signals a fundamental departure from the HSE's role as safety watchdog.

"The HSE's job is to make the workplace safe, but now it's being explicitly instructed not to do that job right," he said.
"The implication for health and safety is that workplaces will become deregulated."

Brendan Barber continued his comment about the possible safety inspection cuts:

"If government cuts to HSE funding do result in fewer safety inspections, unscrupulous employers will simply assume they can get away with taking risks with the safety and well-being of their staff, without fear of ever being prosecuted.
'Health and safety inspectors do a great job preventing workers from falling ill, being injured or even killed at work, and in a recent TUC survey of union safety reps, 61 per cent of reps said the chance of a visit from an inspector had encouraged their employer make improvements to safety."

He concluded by challenging David Cameron:

"The government needs to demonstrate that it is committed to improving health and safety, and can show that it is by reversing the recent cuts to HSE and local authority funding, which are putting the safety of millions of workers across the UK at risk."

Is HSE finished? - Read this major article from Hazards magazine on the future for the HSE

Source: TUC / BBC News Website

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