Health & Safety could get very expensive
The health and safety landscape of Britain changed at the end of September as the HSE’s telephone Infoline was axed and telephone RIDDOR reporting was removed for all but the most serious of injuries, says Andrew Bennett.
However, more is to come as the HSE is very likely to get the ability to recover costs from next April. Businesses need to sit up and pay attention.
The Health and Safety Executive has long stressed its commitment to advising businesses as part of its many roles. As recently as June 2009, in their strategy document, Be Part of the Solution, the HSE stated that the “HSE provides strategic direction and leads the health and safety system as a whole. In addition to inspection, investigation and enforcement, key activities include... providing information and advice...”
However, the HSE has also consistently received criticism from businesses for neglecting the advice and preventative side of their obligations in favour of more reactive action, for example prosecutions and other enforcement action. Seemingly scared of committing to any concrete advice, the HSE has been seen by different industries as more of a policeman rather than a teacher or guide.
In recent years, the perception of the HSE has improved through more training being given to inspectors, the HSE Infoline giving quick and common sense advice, and the HSE showing more of a willingness to use specialised advice to assist their promotion and enforcement of health and safety.
However, this progress is very much under threat due to the much documented Government public spending cuts which have resulted in a variety of recent changes. In particular, the news that the HSE ended its Infoline on 30 September of this year has been met with some considerable concern.
Not a replacement
The replacement to this service is, regrettably, not a replacement at all, as health and safety duty holders will simply be referred to the HSE’s existing website instead.
While the website’s 26m visits per year represents 100 times the amount of the callers to the HSE Infoline, many of these callers were people who had gone to the website and had needed to call someone to clarify what the advice they had read on the internet.
The HSE now recommends that if people do not understand the advice on the website, they should seek advice from a reputable health and safety consultant. These consultants are now listed on an Occupational Safety and Health Consultant’s Register, following the Young review of health and safety law. However, the lack of a transitional period between the end of the Infoline, and the new, recommended advice route is worrying.
Furthermore, the fact that people will have not be able to contact the HSE verbally is perhaps symptomatic of an enforcement body that simply isn’t prioritising the advice and guidance side of its duty.
The end of the Infoline coincides with the changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Dangerous Diseases and Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) reporting system whereby work related injuries and incidents reportable under this system are now only able to be notified to the HSE via the HSE website (rather than there continuing to be an option to report over the phone).
Over half of RIDDOR reports are already completed online and fatal or major incidents are still permitted to be reported by phone as the circumstances of these incidents will often be incredibly stressful and needing of a personal interaction with the HSE. However, one of the main advantages of being able to phone in RIDDOR reports for more minor incidents was that it afforded the reporter to gain reassurance as to whether they should report an incident at all.
Little doubt
For major incidents (which can still be phoned i’), there is likely to be little doubt that they need to be reported, but the lack of a phone service for minor incidents is likely to lead to a huge number of reports being made online for incidents that may not need to be reported at all.
This is likely to have the greatest impact on small to medium sized businesses that may not be particularly liable to have major incidents, but may have many minor incidents.
In the midst of these two changes, the HSE’s costs recovery proposals have been produced in a government document on which consultation recently closed. The proposals would allow the HSE, in the near future, most probably from April 2012, to start to recover costs for all enforcement action (not just the costs of prosecutions) that the HSE takes in respect of “material breaches” by health and safety duty holders.
This would open the door for the HSE to start to charge duty holders for the cost of their enforcement action, ranging from producing a letter of advice to the issuing of a prohibition order (and any costs of a related investigation before such an order is issued). The proposals, as they currently stand do not extend to Local Authorities being able to recover their costs for health and safety enforcement action falling short of prosecutions.
Therefore, the danger is that the only specific and bespoke advice that organisations and businesses will ever receive in the future from the HSE will be in conjunction with enforcement action… and a bill.
The distance between the HSE and duty holders is only likely to increase due to the proposals and perhaps the greatest worry is that the proposed extension of recovery of costs may create a certain measure distrust and suspicion of the HSE by organisations. That is something that nobody wants and does not help any organisation. Indeed, it also hinders health and safety enforcement.
A little more conversation, a little less action and please don’t bill us for the chat or the letter… be very cautious.
More information
Health and safety consultants: oshcr.org/
RIDDOR Reporting: hse.gov.uk/riddor/report.htm
Cost recovery proposals: http://consultations.hse.gov.uk/consult.ti/cd235/consultationHome
