Local Authority Proactive H&S Inspections Fall By 77%
As expected by Union Safety Reps and their respective Trade unions around the country, local authority environmental health pro-active inspections have been decimated as a result of the Tory drive ConDem(ned) government policies on workplace health and safety protection.
Local authority environmental health departments are responsible for enforcement in BT call centres, offices, and telephone exchanges. Some areas such as cable chambers will be covered by the HSE. They are also responsible for such places as shops, nightclubs, pubs, fun fairs, schools and camping grounds within their areas.
Whilst inspections are down over all across a range of categories, proactive inspections are down by at least 77% - and that is only using data from those local authorities that have responded to request for their statistics.
Worse still, the number of council proactive inspections of high-risk category A premises has fallen 44 per cent, according to new figures.
A report drafted for HELA, the Health and Safety Executive’s local authority liaison committee, estimated councils will have carried out 2,560 proactive inspections at high-risk premises in 2012/13, compared to 4,560 in the previous year.
The number of inspections at low-risk premises – category B2 or C – fell from 49,419 to 10,245.
It was also estimated a fifth of local authorities carried out no proactive inspections at all.
Commenting on the figures, Derek Maylor, Chair of the NW BTU Health and Safety Co-ord told Unionsafety;
“Once again those claiming government policies on health and safety at work protection would not risk the health, safety and welfare of workers, has been shown to be complacent at best, but dismissive of the need for healthy workplaces at worst.”
He added:
“Sadly we are going to see an increase in the number of injuries and deaths at work, although the true nature of what is occurring in the workplaces will be hidden by statistical evidence which will be even more dodgy than the existing official figures.
This will be helped by the lack of reporting due to the changes to RIDDOR, and the message to employers that they probably wont be caught unless someone dies at their workplace.”
The reduction in local authority health and safety enforcement activities follows a series of government policies designed to cut back on health and safety inspections. Under proposals set out in a national enforcement code, local authorities will be prevented from carrying out any proactive inspections at low-risk premises.
HELA committee member Steve Miller told Environmental Health News website that the reduction was in line with government policy but that some councils were still examining low-risk premises in a greater proportion to high-risk.
He said the practice of conducting health and safety checks at the same time as food inspections would need to ‘go out the window’.
“It’s traditionally what we’ve done as EHPs. The danger is that government will ask councils why they are doing low-risk inspections at all,” he added
“The message coming from government isn’t always getting to the troops on the ground. Local politicians and people leading environmental health departments aren’t always keen on this; they want to do health and safety.
That’s going to have to change or the government could come in and clobber us.
We shouldn’t be doing health and safety in every premises we go into unless there’s something we spot or we know that someone has complained or its common knowledge that there’s a problem or has been an accident.”
Chartered EHP David Gibson questioned how long councils could retain officers with the necessary competence with so few inspections being carried out.
He said: “Inspectors will soon not have enough experience to maintain their competency. And inspection numbers are set to drop still further, as gradually all local authorities come fully into line with the HSE directions on when visits may be made.
“The HELA report shows a 30 per cent drop in accident investigation visits, and a 67 per cent drop in all health and safety visits. How far does the government wish the loss in public protection to go?”
Mirroring the views of USRs and Trade Unions, he referred to the recent disaster and loss of life in South America;
“It is alarming to consider this when we have just had the disaster in The Kiss Night Club in Santa Maria in Brazil, where 231 lives were lost. Control of pyrotechnics in entertainment venues comes within the ambit of health and safety enforcement in the UK, not fire safety legislation. Under the draft enforcement code, local authorities would be barred from making routing proactive checks on such pyrotechnics.”
But the final words on this subject are given to Hilda Palmer, spokesperson for the Hazards Campaign.
She said the figures were ‘horrifying’ and that the fall in inspections was far higher than the 33 per cent demanded by former health and safety minister Chris Grayling.
She added: “The role of proactive inspections as part of an effective enforcement regime, is to check up on employers' compliance, protect workers, lead to improvements and also save employers money.
But they also deliver justice and deterrence, reward good employers and weed out the rogues. A fall in scrutiny only rewards the bad employer who passes on the cost to the employee, the community and the public purse.
That a fifth of local authorities carry out no proactive inspection at all is a shocking and unacceptable retreat from enforcement and protection, exposing workers in those areas to increased risk of ill-health and injury. Workplace health and safety also affects the public who are being put at unrecognised but increased risk, as the legionnaires outbreaks starkly show."
Source: EHN on-line
You can download the HELA document detailing statistical information on local authority environmental health inspections from the E-Libary Database using search category 'HSE reports' here
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