Reports Highlight Collapse Of H&S Enforcement

Britain's health and safety enforcement regime is in serious decline, two new reports suggest.

The inspection trend, with Health and Safety Executive field inspector numbers and inspections undertaken dipping markedly in recent years, has fallen dramatically and taken enforcement action down with it. It is a situation described by criminal law experts Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte as the 'collapse of enforcement'.

In a paper in the British Journal of Criminology, they note: "Investigations and inspections have fallen at an unprecedented rate as political and resource pressures have taken their toll on the day-to-day work of the inspectorate; the percentage falls in enforcement activities, already from low absolute levels, can hardly be described as anything other than a collapse."

The paper adds: "The extent of this decline would simple not be sustainable in most other areas of law enforcement - imagine the efforts of a Chief Constable, for example, to defend declines in investigations of violent interpersonal assault, or falls in prosecutions of apprehended burglars, where these certainly would be represented as a collapse in enforcement, which, no doubt would cause a political furore."

In a second report, figures obtained by Hazards magazine show that in 2007/08, just 7.3 per cent of the 32,810 fatal and major injuries - or fewer than 1-in-every-13 - reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) resulted in an investigation by the watchdog. For major injuries alone, the chance of an HSE investigation was lower still, with just 6.5 per cent investigated. HSE told the magazine it now spends more time on 'frontline activity', up from 184,843 person days in 2006/07 to 209,242 in 2007/08. But this lumps in with inspection and enforcement work the resources spent on activities including 'preparation for and attendance at agricultural shows, lectures, and other awareness-raising activities' and 'standards-setting work'.

Downlaod report from the E-Library Database here

Source: TUC Risks

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