Changes to health and safety regulation rules

The health and safety landscape of Britain changed at the end of September as the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) telephone information line was axed and telephone RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995) reporting was removed for all but the most serious of injuries. 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 HSE has 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 than a teacher or guide.

 

Specialised advice

In recent years, the perception of the HSE has improved through more training being given to inspectors, the HSE Information line 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 Information line on 30 September of this year has been met with considerable concern. 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 26 million visits per year represents 100 times the amount of the callers to the HSE Information line, many of these callers were people who had gone to the website and had needed to call someone to clarify 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 2010 Young review of health and safety law. However, the lack of a transitional period between the end of the Information line, and the new, recommended advice route is worrying.

 

Furthermore, the fact that people will 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).

 

Fatal reporting

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 enabled the reporter to gain reassurance as to whether they should report an incident at all. For major incidents (which can still be 'phoned-in'), 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 who 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. 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 of 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.