David Cameron has again brought health and safety to the public’s attention with the launch of a review into UK legislation. In his opinion, the current system is full of “joke” regulations and has given rise to a “compensation culture”. Meanwhile Lord Young, who is leading the legislative review, has described the health and safety culture in the UK as “a music hall joke”.
But these quotes only give weight to the misconceived public opinion that health and safety measures are something to be laughed at. By playing down the vital work of health and safety professionals in this way, we are in serious danger of trivialising the practice of preventing hundreds of deaths each year.
In the past three decades the number of workplace deaths in the UK has fallen dramatically. In 1974, 651 fatalities were reported but in 2009, after 30-plus years of the Health and Safety at Work Act, this number had dropped to 180. This is still a huge number of lives to lose, but without the sterling work of those that set the standards for health and safety, many more would have been lost.
Another aspect of health and safety that is often breezed over is the “health” part. While statistics focus on the number of deaths in the workplace, this accounts for only about four or five per cent of deaths caused by work. The rest are testimony to our failure to look after the health of our employees over the longer term. In a world where stress levels are increasingly high, surely we shouldn’t be making a joke of so-called “elf and safety”, but taking the matter seriously and doing all we can to protect people going about their job?
And if we look at this from a productivity viewpoint, there is an equally strong argument. According to the Health and Safety Executive, last year 29.3 million working days were lost due to work-related ill health and injury. Apart from the human cost, this is not something that the UK is in a position to laugh at given the current state of the economy.
There are certainly many examples of health and safety legislation being ”over interpreted”, but we just might be forgetting the countless times that health and safety measures have made the all-important difference between life and death.
By Simon Feary, CQI CEO
8 July 2010
4 Comments
This is a really interesting commentary Simon and,as you say, not something to take lightly.
My perception is that the primary challenge is to get the balance right between legislation, implementation and common sense.
When stories hit the headlines such as the two friends (who happened to be police women) who decided to look after each others babies without registering with Ofsted (with its accompanying inspections and requirements to deliver and record the 65 targets of the new early years curriculum) then something is surely wrong!
Thankfully common sense reigned in that situation but I am sure you get my drift!
So the challenge is – how do we, as a society, ensure health and safety without such nonsense?
Oh – and by the way – don’t expect any tea lights on the tables at the London Excellence Awards this year. Health and Safety won’t allow them!!
It is interesting that the CQI believes it has a voice in the ongoing debate on health and safety legislation and to read Simon Feary’s take on the upcoming review by Lord Young. In my opinion this is a valid area for our interest and I am pleased to see we haven’t slavishly followed the tabloid press in rehashing the ‘bonkers conkers’ stories. It is worth bearing in mind that David Cameron’s original comments were in December and part of a strategy to win votes for the upcoming election so perhaps the message was deliberately populist.
Lord Young’s comments are probably of more concern to me with the ‘music hall joke’ soundbite having the highest profile but if you read further details of his interview – his understanding of the brief he has been given appears much more balanced.
In the (quality) interest of not doing things twice I should like to point Lord Young at the work done some time ago by the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council on health and safety in small organizations – here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file52340.pdf and by BERR in August 2008 on improving outcomes from health and safety – here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file47324.pdf . In each case the issues identified are not with the law but with third parties and in particular certain sections of the consultancy and legal professions.
I am sure Lord Young will carry out his background research well and conclude that there is little wrong with the legislation but there are plenty of opportunities for improvement in the industry that has sprung up around an organization’s need to comply with requirements.
Many of our CQI members have responsibility for health and safety and for the underpinning management systems that deliver this good performance that Simon mentions. We have a role alongside health and safety professionals in ensuring the good health and safety practice baby isn’t thrown out with the bureaucracy / cost bath water.
Health and Safety (H&S) is there to reduce cost to the economy: death and injury is costly to business and individuals.
The problem was once so bad that there was an award for any industrial companies who had not had a death on their premises that year. The success of Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the decline in manufacturing has reduced the “death at work” numbers to a low level: 151 workers were killed in Britain between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010.
How many people think about that original objective now? The relative success has meant HSE and other H&S practitioners have moved into the “well being” area. Healthy and safe staff are usually more productive.
However, humans seem to need a certain level of challenge and risk to be healthy. If we make our lives “too safe” they become bland and that brings risks of disengagement, increased stress over small things, and lack of emotional stability.
Getting the balance right can be hard. Politicians are right to point out when the rules and processes gets overblown and pointless restrictions are placed on adults.
One fact remains: death by employer is not a joke.
Here is a a good link to the HSE’s ‘Myth of the month’ site. http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/apr10.htm
It is clear to me the regulator understands their role well enough and, as I said earlier the regulations are actually not too bad. As with all these things it is the understanding and implementation of those requirements … sounds a bit like ISO 9001!