Workplaces allowed to be inspected listed on single sheet of paper!
The Government’s latest act in making workplaces less safe came into effect today Wednesday 29 May), as local authorities are now banned from what the government call ‘unnecessary’ health and safety inspections.
From today, the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) statutory National Enforcement Code for local authorities will instead target proactive council inspections on higher risk activities in specified sectors or when there is intelligence of workplaces putting employees or the public at risk. In effect wait until a death or injury before doing anything!
It has been suggested that this move will see tens of thousands of businesses removed from health and safety inspections which are not justified on a risk basis, including the majority of shops and offices.
For those who ignored the government's Red Tape Challenge, seeing it merely as a gimmick, the fact is that it was the major source of government decisions, certainly with regard to inspection of businesses. The introduction to the National Code makes this clear:
"This National Code has been developed in response to this recommendation [Löfstedt Review] and as an outcome of the Red Tape Challenge on Health and Safety."
Under this new code, checks will continue on poor performers and at sites where there are higher risk activities, such as cooling towers, where life-threatening legionella bacteria can develop, and buried liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) gas pipes which can create an explosion if corroded.
Only those 10 work activities or work sectors on the single page list for proactive inspection by LAs will be inspected!
Indeed, the list is conspicuous by work activities and places it does NOT list, rather than those that it does!
In one North West local authority, a source has advised Unionsafety that health and safety inspectors have been banned for some time, since 2012, from inspecting any workplaces at all unless a report of an incident having taken place resulting in the death of a worker or an amputation as a result of a workplace incident; has previously been received!
In effect, employers are no longer being prevented by either pro-active inspections or health and safety law enforcement; from killing or maiming their employees!
According to the HSE website, The National Enforcement Code provides a principle based framework that recognises the respective roles of business and the regulator in the management of risk, concentrating on four objectives:
- Clarifying the roles and responsibilities of business, regulator and professional bodies
- Outlining the risk-based approach to regulation that LAs should adopt
- Setting out the need for training and competence of LA H&S regulators
- Explaining the arrangements for collection/publication of LA data and peer review to give assurance on meeting the requirements of the Code.
In a simplistic and factually ignorant statement, Minister for Employment, Mark Hoban, applauding the banning order on local council health and safety inspectors said:
“We need health and safety that protects people where there are real risks but doesn’t stifle businesses. There are too many examples of local councils imposing unnecessary burdens by inspecting low risk businesses. This new code should put a stop to this by putting common sense back into the system.”
Unsurprisingly the HSE fully support this attack on health and safety at work protection. HSE Chair, Judith Hackitt, said:
“Real improvement in safety performance will come from targeting those who put their employees at greatest risk.
Local inspectors have a very important role to play in ensuring the effective and proportionate management of risks by businesses, and the code is designed to guide them to do this.”
She added:
“It sets out how targeting should be achieved, providing certainty for both businesses and regulators. HSE will be working with local authorities to ensure the code is successfully implemented.”
In response to the new code, Mary Boughton, Chairwoman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Health and Safety Committee, which has always attacked pro-active workplace inspections and lobbied for these changes; said:
“The FSB supports the principles behind the new local authority enforcement code for health and safety at work.
We believe that it is important to ensure that all local authority health and safety inspections are consistently risk based and proportionate to ensure that low-risk, compliant businesses are able to concentrate on growth.”
Under the new code, which now makes health and safety at work even more of a confrontational issue than it already is; low risk businesses will be able to complain to an independent panel if they are unhappy about being inspected, which will investigate and issue a public judgement.
Of course in producing a list of activities/sectors for proactive inspection by LAs, the government is knowingly placing added risk to all other workplaces it has banned from being inspected! In that sense it is acting against both the spirit and wording of the Health & Safety At Work Act!
The time is now right for employers to be able to refuse to allow inspections of their premises, and as a result; we are moving more towards the US style of health and safety – wait until someone dies before doing an inspection!
Both the code and the list of workplace categories involved is available from the E-Library Database using search category 'Health and Safety Legislation'
Source: HSE / DWP / Unionsafety
