New HSE Strategy: Be part of the safety solution
June 25th 2009 In the three decades since the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was established, Britain's record on workplace safety has been steadily improving. Whereas in the late 1970s more than 600 people a year died in accidents at work, last year that figure was down to 229
It is no exaggeration to say that hundreds of lives have been saved as British workplaces have become among the safest in Europe.
But as Judith Hackitt, the chair of HSE, acknowledges, in recent years the pace of improvement has slowed – workplaces have not been getting safer at the same rate, a combination of new risks emerging and some old industrial risks stubbornly enduring.
So when the Health and Safety Commission was merged with the HSE last year, the new non-executive board decided the time was right to seek a fresh approach.
The result, the strategy Be Part of the Solution, acknowledges that the regulator cannot act alone and that a wider partnership for safety is needed.
"Regulation alone will never deliver health and safety to the standard we want," Judith Hackitt says.
"This is about all of us accepting that health and safety is the right thing to do for the success of an organisation, not just because it is a moral or legal obligation but because it is good business sense." The strategy that HSE has set out is one for Great Britain as a whole, not just the national regulator. It contains a series of goals for a wide range of partners – from employers to trades unions and safety bodies – to pursue over the next five years.
These include the need to develop a stronger sense of leadership on safety and employee health among those running businesses, and a drive for improvements in the competence of advisors. A third priority is increasing involvement of the workforce in setting safety procedures.
Customising advice and support for small firms and a drive for creating safer, healthier workplaces also figure prominently in the new plan, as does action to tackle risks of catastrophic incidents in those industries that create major hazards.
Additionally, HSE recognises that health and safety is not delivered in a vacuum and that wider factors shape how employers behave, including commercial pressures, the ever-evolving British culture and other aspects of regulation.
As well as seeking to deliver a reduction in the number of work-related fatalities, injuries and ill health, the strategy also seeks to develop a widespread commitment to, and recognition of, what the real health and safety agenda is.
One of the strongest themes to emerge from the strategy is the need to tackle a tendency to blame health and safety for unpopular decisions that are often taken in the name of safety but have little to do with actual protection for workers. High profile reports about the banning of children's games or flip flops in offices have cheapened and trivialised the work of those committed to real health and safety, and distorted public perceptions of what it exists for, HSE says.
Research shows that, wrongly, a third of employers believe that HSE has banned school pupils from playing with conkers. One in five think the national regulator has banned donkey rides. For Judith Hackitt it is not just a simple case of being misunderstood.
"If people are cynical or in any way dubious about health and safety, it makes our job and the job of managers in workplaces more difficult, it makes it harder to win people over to what is essentially exercising common sense and personal responsibility," she says.
"We are in a battle for hearts and minds. If we want to win that battle then we have to motivate people, to recognise that their own safety and welfare is important as is that of their colleagues.
HSE cannot do this alone. We need the support of our partners. Together we can be part of the solution."
Beware the recession – and the recovery, firms warned
The potential impact of the recession
on health and safety was revealed by
new research published to coincide
with the strategy launch.
A survey of 1,000 business leaders
found that more than a quarter said
their firm was under pressure to cut
spending on safety this year – raising
fears about workplaces becoming more
dangerous.
This despite the fact that three
quarters of the company managers
surveyed said good health and safety
was beneficial to their business, and
that two thirds said they thought the
costs of preventing an incident would
be less than responding to one.
Bosses were also found to massively
underestimate the numbers killed or
seriously injured each year.
But HSE's economists warned that
evidence from previous recessions
points to an increase in the rates of
fatalities and injuries as the economy
moves into a recovery phase.
A key factor is thought to be the
increased number of employees with
relatively little experience recruited to
jobs with inherent risks, such as in the
construction sector.
Other considerations include longer
working hours, which can lead to
injury through fatigue, and less
perceived pressure to cover up
accidents.
Health and safety guidance to be free online
Among the announcements rolled into HSE's strategy launch came the news that the
full range of its authoritative guidance about how to protect employees from
workplace dangers is to be given away free.
From September 2009 around 250 priced publications that contain health and
safety advice and guidance will be made freely available from HSE's website in PDF
format, to both view and print.
The publications cover the full range of HSE's guidance as well as approved codes
of practice (ACOPs) and information on regulations.
HSE said it was making the publications available to help employers better
understand their legal duties and what health and safety precautions they need to
take. The move will also make it simpler for safety representatives to maintain and
improve health and safety in the workplace.
Those that wish to will still have the option to buy professionally produced, printed versions from HSE Books.
Pledge proves popular in push for real safety agenda
HSE also launched a new campaign to reclaim the real health and safety agenda.
It published a five point pledge that seeks to focus attention on the true purpose of health and safety – protecting employees – rather than on trivia. Signatories:
Agree to play their part in reducing the numbers of work-related deaths, injuries and ill-health in Great Britain
- Call on employers to put health and safety at the heart of what they do and to take a common sense approach to health and safety
- Commit to debunking myths around health and safety that trivialise the impact of injuries, ill health and deaths on individuals and their families
- Recognise the importance of health and safety in difficult economic times and the dangers of complacency
- Pledge to work with HSE and its partners to Be Part of the Solution
More than 100 organisations signed up to the regulator's pledge on improving
workplace safety in the first 72 hours and more are joining every day.
Firms including BT, Royal Mail and Corus are supporting the initiative, along with representative bodies the Institute of Directors, the CBI and the EEF. The Local Government Association and LACORS (the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services) are giving the scheme their backing on behalf of hundreds of local councils and their safety inspectors.
Pledge your support: www.hse.gov.uk/strategy/pledge.htm
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