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Councils Cut In Health And Safety Enforcement Bite As expected, following the government's slash and burn of council services policy, amongst the firs to be hit is that of health and safety enforcement. In a press release issued by USDAW last week, Local authority environmental health departments are suffering as a result of budget cuts. Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) working for local authorities enforce health and safety law in workplaces including shops, offices and warehouses. The cuts by local councils as a result of a massive decrease in government funding, is having a drastic and detrimental effect upon Environmental Health Officers staffing levels. A survey by Environmental Health News (EHN) - the journal of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health - suggests that environmental health departments hit by budget cuts have lost on average two full-time equivalent front-line staff in the last six months. A total of 25 councils reported that they have already lost environmental health staff, are expecting redundancies or have a recruitment freeze. Many management, EHO and technical officer posts have been left vacant. The erosion of safety enforcement is to be a campaign target of the union Usdaw, whose members work predominantly in sectors covered by local authority enforcement. USDAW have said that, "As part of our activity around Workers' Memorial Day on 28 April, Usdaw will be urging members to find out what is happening to health and safety enforcement in their local authority." Source: USDAW
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