Health and Safety Executive Business Plan 2017-18



The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Business Plan for 2017-18 shows a decrease in year-on-year funding from central government. This year (2017-18), it will receive just £135.6 million, falling to £128.4 million in each of the following two years, compared to the £140.5 million it received in 2016-17. This year, the HSE will receive just 56% of the £231 million of government funding it received in the final year of the last Labour government (2009-10).


Union health and safety specialists have questioned the safety watchdog’s decision to prioritise tackling the challenges of “blue tape” in the new business plan. Blue tape, the HSE explains, is where “the bureaucratic demands placed by businesses on each other can be disproportionate to the risks faced. It gives the example of requirements placed on companies through the supply chain, health and safety consultants or insurers. The HSE says its business plan will “begin to develop the evidence-base and outline proposals that will address blue tape issues”.


But the national health, safety and environment director for the GMB general union, Dan Shears, told the Labour Research Department: “The idea that HSE should devote resources to elective work on ‘blue tape’ is simply bizarre.” The HSE has been cut to the bone by years of austerity, he said, and its priorities must be implementing its occupational health strategy and increasing its inspection and enforcement activity.


He pointed out that “for years HSE was banned from producing guidance on good or best practice, yet they can now advise on not exceeding compliance? Trade associations are more than capable of doing this on their own. This is nothing to do with HSE’s role, and GMB believes that resources should not be made available for any such work.”


TUC head of health and safety Hugh Robertson added: “It is true that employers are becoming more reliant on consultants and insurers, but this is because the government has slashed the role of the state regulatory bodies such as the HSE and local authorities and others are now filling the vacuum.”


Robertson also questioned the HSE’s priorities, saying: “While so-called ‘blue tape’ may exist sometimes, it is not that which is making over two million people ill every year and injuring over 600,000. That is the lack of adequate precautions being taken by employers to protect their workers. That needs to be tackled by strong regulation supported by simple, clear and accessible guidance and support for employers, backed up by a strong inspection and enforcement regime.”


Other priorities set out in the plan including reducing levels of work-related stress, musculoskeletal disorders and occupational lung disease, with a commitment to carry out 20,000 proactive inspections. (This is a fall from the 33,000 inspections planned for 2010-11.) The HSE will also contribute to work arising from “Brexit”, including preparing for any necessary changes to the chemicals regime.


The HSE Business Plan 2017-18 can be found on its website (www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/strategiesandplans/businessplans/plan1718.pdf).