Guest blog – Paul Faupel

Paul Faupel is not at all impressed with the various reviews coming from a government that is set on repeating the mistakes of the past. (The views expressed are the author’s own.)

Here we go again

How encouraging to see the consistency in the Coalition government’s approach to dealing with the “frustration” allegedly caused by “the health and safety culture” in Britain.  Lord Young’s damp squib report last October has been taken at face value, without any diligent enquiry into how its “evidence” was collected and objectively examined and evaluated before Lord Young reached his conclusions and made his recommendations.  Now we have a “progress report” on the parrot-fashion implementation his recommendations and a bonus report from Employment Minister Chris Grayling MP telling us how the “deregulatory agenda” is to be applied to the health and safety regime.  It seems that Santayana is being proved correct in his assertion that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Every Conservative government, and now the Conservative-led Coalition, since 1979 has had a go at health and safety and signally failed to address the fundamental flaw in the regulatory and enforcement system, namely the split between the HSE, the local authorities and more recently the “spin off” regulators such as the Office of Rail Regulation and the, soon to be, Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Lord Robens sought to establish a single enforcement agency but was frustrated in that aim by having to leave the local authority sector alone, largely because it was a political hot potato at that time to tinker with a local government system that had only just been reorganized following the 1972 review, implemented on 1 April 1974, a familiar date.  So here we are past the first decade of the second millennium and we still have a health and safety enforcement structure derived from an archaic system largely inherited from the earlier half of the twentieth century.  Lord Young, Mr Grayling and the Prime Minister could have been much more original in their thinking and taken health and safety regulation, a national issue, out of the local authority sector altogether, where it is now to be formally joined up with the acknowledged local issue of food safety enforcement.  Local authority health and safety enforcement is constantly at the mercy of local politics where it currently resides and a lot of resource at central and local government level is invested in liaison in the parallel running of the two enforcement arms.

The austerity measures are hitting local authorities hard, just as the HSE is being hit hard.  Rather than cut back the respective work forces (for that will be the impact of the 35% reduction of inspection workload in both tiers), a significant number of the local authority health and safety inspectors could have been transferred to the HSE, yet remained in district level offices alongside of and under the leadership of key HSE inspectors working at a regional level.  And, yes, I acknowledge that there would be funding issues, TUPE etc to be resolved.  But such a move would enhance the competence of local authority inspectors by broadening their scope, relieve the HSE of the burden of local inspection through rationalisation of roles and provide the HSE with a better appreciation of local employer issues.

But it would also expose the paucity of resource in the local authority sector where Environmental Health professionals have to respond to the pressures of the “efficiency” agenda to double or even triple their roles by covering enforcement of health and safety and public health, and also acting as internal health and safety advisers for their employers.

Whilst Mr Grayling acknowledges the dog’s breakfast that EU Directives have made of our world-leading health and safety regulatory system since 1992, he should perhaps have been more radical and proposed, alongside of the review of regulation, a review of the enforcement structure designed to fit the modern, entrepreneurial economy that he and his confreres in politics and business so earnestly seek to encourage.

Paul F Faupel CBiol MSB MIRM CFIOSH
Former IOSH President 2000 – 2002

Editor’s blog – Reaction to Lord Young’s health and safety review

So, the much-heralded review by Lord Young of Graffham is finally here and, given that the Tory peer has talked about it widely in the media in the last few months, it doesn’t contain any great surprises.

He confirms the establishment of an accreditation scheme for health and safety consultants, recommends restrictions on the activities of no-win, no-fee lawyers, proposes measures to simplify risk assessment for SMEs and businesses in low-risk environments, and suggests a consolidation of the “raft” of health and safety legislation into one set of “accessible” regulations.

There isn’t too much with which to find major fault – most stakeholders, apart from the TUC and many of the unions, have broadly welcomed the report – but I personally think that questions will begin to be asked, once the dust has settled and everyone has got their heads round the detail.

Common sense, for example, is trumpeted in the report and is something that many have wished to see more of in the application of health and safety rules, but what about the equally oft-expressed complaint that the problem with common sense is that it’s not all that common?

And couldn’t it be argued that there is some contradiction inherent in, on the one hand, saying that much health and safety, risk assessment, etc. is common sense but, on the other, that only competence – and evidence of such – can ensure that mistakes are not made?

On the subject of competence, and the new Occupational Safety Consultants Register, I am a little concerned that the review gives the impression – certainly to anyone who is not familiar with the health and safety profession – that, up until now, there has been very little proportionate, sensible, etc. advice provided and that, hitherto, practitioners have been operating completely without professional recognition.

This, of course, is not the case. The requirements to become a member, and especially to achieve chartered membership, of, for example, IOSH and the CIEH, are stringent and both organisations have always tried to ensure, insofar as possible, that their members uphold the professional standards expected of them. Will the new scheme really be able to do any more?

Based on his answers to questions during a press conference held immediately after this morning’s launch of the report, I also wonder just how robust some of the information on which he bases many of his recommendations is. For example, when asked to back up his claim that there are “many” health and safety consultants out there with no qualifications who are giving duff advice, he simply said: “That’s what I’ve been told.”

Similarly, when challenged on exempting the Police and fire-fighters from prosecution for undertaking an act of heroism, he had to acknowledge that such a situation hasn’t actually arisen as yet, but  “it might”.

Lord Young also appeared to express a confused notion of the importance of risk-assessing on issues such as stress in the workplace, suggesting that managing the issue has nothing to do with carrying out a risk assessment but is simply about considering the health and well-being of employees.

IOSH, too, has previously questioned some of Lord Young’s views, although it worked hard with the peer from the initial announcement of his review to ensure that he had all the information he needed. As chief executive Rob Strange said earlier today, this marks a “turning point” for health and safety in the UK so it just remains to be seen where the change of direction takes us.

Tina Weadick
Editor – Safety & Health Practitioner
shpeditor@ubm.com