Championing a sensible approach to health and safety

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has heralded the publication of Lord Young’s report as “an important milestone on the road to recovery for the reputation of real health and safety.”

The review, which was announced in June, aimed to clarify health and safety law and put an end to misunderstandings, unnecessary risk aversion, and the compensation culture that appeared to be developing in the UK.

The HSE have always championed the idea of “a sensible and proportionate approach” to health and safety, arguing that it is “not about eliminating every minor risk from everyday life”. Lord Young’s report identifies the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 as an “effective framework” which has helped to significantly reduce the number of accidents and fatalities in the workplace.

He has also concluded that the negative myth that health and safety is all about “banning things” has been fostered through misinterpretations and misapplication of the law, rather than the legislation itself. He has recommended controls on no-win-no-fee lawyers, the simplification of risk assessments for low-risk businesses and the formal accreditation and registration of health and safety consultants.

The HSE is already working to implement some of these recommendations. They are helping to set up a new Occupational Safety Consultants Register (OSCR), which will go live in January 2011. The aim of the new register is to prevent poorly trained people from operating as consultants and providing businesses with inaccurate health and safety advice. The report also advises that extra scrutiny should be placed on councils and other organisations which ban events on health and safety grounds.

Judith Hackitt, Chair of the HSE, commented: “Publication of the report is a tremendous opportunity to refocus health and safety on what it is really about – managing workplace risks. Getting this right is good for employers, employees and Britain as a whole.

“We’ve been saying for some time that health and safety is being used by too many people as a convenient excuse to hide behind. Often it is invoked to disguise somebody’s motives – concerns over costs or complexity, an unwillingness to defend an unpopular decision or simple laziness. Lord Young is sweeping these excuses away.”

Perry Leeks, Managing Director at First Response Training, says: “At First Response, we firmly believe that the law is there to protect people from harm, and we are pleased that Lord Young’s report has shown that it does exactly that. Health and safety deserves a much more positive image than it has currently. Hopefully the publication of this report will help to achieve that and undo some of the damage done by the well-publicised barmy examples in the media, which are actually the result of people misunderstanding the law.”

First Response also supports the development of the OSCR and Perry adds: “We have a team of expert trainers who deliver health and safety training in a way that is interactive, relevant and interesting. From a 3 hour awareness course to our 4 day IOSH Managing Safely, we have a suite of training programmes that can help those who are responsible for health and safety in their settings understand what they need to do.”

For more information, call us today on freephone 0800 310 2300.