COMMON SENSE, COMMON SAFETY

Lord Young of Graffham has completed his review into the operation of health and safety laws and the growth of the compensation culture, and has published his report.
Entitled “Common Sense, Common Safety”, the report details the findings from the review and outlines recommendations in key areas.

Highlights include:

Compensation culture
Introduce a simplified claims procedure for personal injury claims similar to that for road traffic accidents under £10,000 on a fixed costs basis and examine the option of extending the upper limit for road traffic accident personal injury claims to £25,000.
Clarify (through legislation if necessary) that people will not be held liable for any consequences due to well intentioned voluntary acts on their part.

Low hazard workplaces
Simplify the risk assessment procedure for low hazard workplaces such as offices, classrooms and shops.
Exempt employers from risk assessments for employees working from home in a low hazard environment and exempt self-employed people in low hazards businesses from risk assessments.

Insurance
Where health and safety consultants are employed to carry out full health and safety risk assessments, only qualified consultants who are included on the web based directory should be used.
There should be consultation with the insurance industry to ensure that worthwhile activities are not unnecessarily curtailed on health and safety grounds.

Education
Simplify the process that schools and similar organisations undertake before taking children on trips.
Introduce a single consent form that covers all activities a child may undertake during his or her time at a school.

Local authorities
Officials who ban events on health and safety grounds should put their reasons in writing.

Health and safety legislation
The current raft of health and safety regulations should be consolidated into a single set of accessible regulations. The HSE should produce clear separate guidance under the Code of Practice focused on small and medium businesses engaged in lower risk activities.

Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous OccurrencesRegulations 1995 (RIDDOR)
Amend the RIDDOR Regulations by extending to seven days the period before an injury or accident needs to be reported.
The HSE should also re-examine the operation of the RIDDOR Regulations to determine whether this is the best approach to providing an accurate national picture of workplace accidents.

Police and fire services
Police offices and firefighters should not be at risk of investigation or prosecution under health and safety legislation when engaged in the course of their duties if they have put themselves at risk as a result of committing a heroic act.

Combining food safety and health and safety inspections
Combine food safety and health and safety inspectors in local authorities.
Open the delivery of inspections to accredited certification bodies, reducing the burden on local authorities and allowing them to target resources at high risk businesses.

HSE Chair Judith Hackett said: “Publication of the report is a tremendous opportunity to refocus health and safety on what it is really about – managing workplace risks. Getting this
right is good for employers, employees and Britain as a whole.” The HSE have already begun working with others to develop responses to two of the recommendations; a 20 minute online risk assessment and other web tools for low risk workplaces, and a new Occupational Safety Consultants Register (OSCR) which will be set up in January 2011.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) said that it broadly welcomed Lord Young’s recommendations. Chief Executive Rob Strange said: “We think this review could
see a turning point for health and safety in the UK by turning the focus away from daft decisions about conker competitions and hanging baskets back onto saving people’s lives in genuinely hazardous areas of work and public life.”

Details of how the majority of the recommendations listed in the report will be implemented, and to what degree, are yet to be announced.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded from here.