Tory Think Tank Demands Decimation Of H&S Legislation

Dave Joyce National Health, Safety & Environment Officer continues to alert USRs and branches of the thereat to the health, safety and welfare of working people that the Tory policies on health and safety deregulation pose.

Writing in his latest letter to branches, LTB251/10 entitled "Health and Safety - Reducing the burden": Latest Tory Attack on Health and Safety Published, Dave says;

"With just 45 days to the General Election, the Tory attack on Health and Safety continues. This time it's the turn of the Employers, right-wing "Policy Exchange" 'think-tank' organisation who have published a report entitled "Health and Safety: Reducing the burden".

The report warns of a 'culture of over-compliance', and of a rapidly burgeoning health and safety industry in which it says consultants have a clear incentive to inflate the level of risk mitigation that must be carried out, both to generate business and protect their reputation. It adds that over 1, 500 'specialist health and safety firms now offer their services to business, and analysts have valued the sector at between £700 million and £1 billion."

Describing some of the detail of the report, the LTB goes on:

" The Better Regulation Executive has described it as 'one of the fastest growing business to business sales sectors in the UK'. It's no surprise that all that the CBI and Institute of Directors are praising the report. In fact the author of the report is from the Institute of Directors and he says that Britain is the safest place to work in the EU but something has gone wrong and there's an enormous amount of uncertainty about health and safety legislation which has led to a culture of over-compliance and health and safety consultants aren't well qualified.

The report recommends that:

* 'so far as is reasonably practical' needs to be clarified and weakened.
* risk assessment requirements need to be weakened.
* only common-sense and practical health and safety steps need to be taken.
* lessen organisation's dependence on the health and safety consultants and competent persons.
* There should be no legal health and safety duties for individual company directors - HSE should think again!
* certain health and safety requirements including risk assessments should be abolished for small enterprises and low-risk office-based businesses.
* remove health and safety requirements for all self-employed.
* Strip back health and safety regulations.
* cut the cost of health and safety by the removal of individual H&S regulations and reduction in H&S regulatory requirements.
* move from the current regime of trying to eliminate all risk, to one where we should try to manage risk effectively.

The LTB concludes by quoting TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber as saying:

"This report is as close to being relevant to the needs of the modern workplace as Alice in Wonderland. "Anyone who believes that there is a culture of over-compliance needs some basic lessons in the reality of working life. Last year 30 million days were lost due to injuries and ill-health caused by work. And a quarter of a million people were injured at work. These were caused by employers failing to comply with health and safety regulations"

Brendan continues; "There is not one shred of evidence that there is any over-compliance. Research has shown that over half of all small businesses have not even done a basic risk assessment as required by law. "We now have less than half the number of regulations than 35 years ago, and they are generally simpler and clearer. Yet businesses spend, on average, less than four minutes a day on health and safety - hardly a major burden. "There is no place for any lowering of standards or reducing regulation. Instead we need more support for those businesses that want to do the right thing, and more enforcement action against those that do not."

This weeks HR Review website covers the news item and quotes Corin Taylor, a senior Policy Advisor at the Institute for Directors and author of the report as saying:

“Health and safety regulation has a long history and a noble purpose. Britain has gone from a country where children climbed chimneys to sweep away coal dust to virtually the safest place to work in the EU. But something has clearly gone wrong.  There’s such an enormous amount of uncertainty about health and safety legislation, that this has led to a culture of over-compliance.  Matters are little helped by the fact that there are no qualifications required to become a health and safety consultant, and it’s possible to acquire an industry-respected health and safety certificate after just 10 days.”

This theme was of course continued by Lord Young at IOSH 10 Conference this week and shows a systematic campaign amongst business and the Troy party to decimate health and safety culture within the UK.

Lord Young Blames IOSH For Health And Safety Crisis

Download the full Tory Think Tank report from the E-Library here

Source: CWU / HR Review / TUC

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