HSE Announces New Health and Safety Strategy

The HSE is to launch a new strategy for health and safety in the workplace in early December. The announcement was made by HSE Chair, Judith Hackitt, at the IOSH National Safety Conference on 8th September, and full details of her speech together with the associated slides can be views on the HSE website. (See links at end of this page.)

Judith Hackitt said the HSE would initiate a consultation process with stakeholders in December to enlist comment on the strategy, which aims to optimise the performance of the overall health and safety system in Britain and clarify the roles of the regulator, those who are regulated, and the workforce.

In her speech Judith Hackitt criticised those in the media and elsewhere who repeatedly concentrated on ‘elf and safety’ stories and 'myths' saying that there is a need to draw a clear distinction between real health and safety – stopping people getting killed – and the nonsense and 'jobsworths' who shamelessly use ‘elf and safety’ as an excuse. Ms Hackitt went on to add that people should know full well that HSE doesn't care about banning 'conkers', 'pancake races' or playground games such as 'Bulldog'. Ms Hackitt concluded that safety doesn't stop anyone from doing their job – it actually enables them to do it more safely and efficiently.

Ms Hackitt also reminded employers and managers that they are responsible for managing health and safety in the workplace, not the HSE. She harked back to the fundamental principle of the HSWA 1974 that ‘those who create the risk are best placed to manage it’, adding that there was no place for complacency. She said: “Only partnership (managers, safety reps and the workforce), working can make the changes necessary to ensure that Great Britain remains a safe place to work.

Ms Hackitt details the challenges Great Britain faces:

• 240 deaths a year occur at work
• 30,000 major injuries - not cuts and bruises but broken limbs, amputations, serious burns   
• 2 million people have an illness either caused or made worse by work - musculoskeletal disorders, asbestos-related disease, stress, asthma and many more.

There is a great deal still to do and the HSE can't do it alone - that is why the new strategy will be for the GB as a whole, not just HSE.

The plan is for HSE to launch the new HSE strategy in early December and at that time HSE will initiate a consultation process which will enable stakeholders to comment. But Ms Hackitt stressed that HSE will want stakeholders to do more than comment alone and HSE is particularly keen to engage in dialogue not only on what HSE can or should be doing but also to identify the key active roles which HSE needs others to take on to help deliver the strategy.

Between now and December HSE will be working to refine the new strategy and more importantly to start to define the strategy delivery process and HSE's key roles in delivery.

The strategy will not be revolutionary but it will set out to optimise the performance of the overall health and safety system. It will clarify the roles of the regulated, the regulator, the workforce and the many others who are part of the system.

HSE will emphasise the importance of leadership - from the top of every organisation starting with the Boards and individual directors. HSE will place leadership at the heart of what HSE see as the overriding strategic aim - the prevention of death, injury and ill health to those at work and those affected by work activity.

There will be a strong focus on a proportionate approach - by dutyholders in being pragmatic and sensible in their approach to risk management, by health and safety professionals in giving competent advice which takes account of the need to encourage a common sense approach - competent professionals do not call for risk elimination.

HSE will make it clear that Safety Rep/worker involvement and consultation is important in every organisation - where trades unions are present and where they are not and in all organisations irrespective of their size or dispersal of work locations.

To reduce the toll of work-related injuries and ill health HSE will aim to improve its ability to focus on priorities - whether by industry, by sector or by individual issue. HSE need every organisation to take ownership of the process to identify its own risk profile. That prioritising process must also recognise and distinguish health and safety and the different approaches which will be required to address the precursors of both.

HSE will work with industries which carry a high risk and higher actual occurrence of serious injuries and with those industries which have the potential to cause significant harm including to the public on how to put safety risk control programmes in place that manage their particular risks effectively and also the business activities to continue to succeed. HSE will also look at the need to pilot new ways of addressing these persistent areas of concern.

HSE will work with the small business community to help them understand how to comply with health and safety law.
HSE and its partners in Local Authorities will focus on key activities to ensure that dutyholders manage their workplaces to ensure the health and safety of the workforce and the public where they are affected by work.

Those activities will include

• providing advice and guidance on what the law requires
• taking appropriate enforcement action where there have been breaches of the law
• alerting dutyholders to new and emerging risks as they are identified.

HSE will also clarify the role of Health and Safety in delivering the broader Government agenda with particular reference to other regulation, Health Work and Wellbeing, Better Regulation and education of future generations in understanding risk.

The HSE will maintain a focus on improving health and safety performance, taking into account wider issues which impact on health and safety where it's sensible to do so.

Between September and December HSE will be working on the delivery of the strategy but in a vision of what HSE hopes to achieve will be:

• to regain widespread commitment and recognition of what real health and safety is about
• to encourage and motivate all those in the health and safety system to be clear about how they will contribute to delivery of the health and safety strategy 
• to continue the reduction in the number of accidents and cases of ill health
• to ensure that those who breach or ignore health and safety duties and responsibilities are appropriately held to account, prosecuted and punished by the courts.
  
  

You can view Judith Hacket's speech in full here or just the slide presentation used in her speech here

Source: HSE / CWU LTB711/08