Health and safety reviews under the coalition government

The coalition government used two reviews to justify its attacks on health and safety legislation and the safety inspection and enforcement regime. The first, Lord Young’s 2010 Common sense: Common safety, set out 36 recommendations, including the following:

• restricting advertising for “no win, no fee” compensation claims and changing the way personal injury claims are handled;

• extending the road traffic accident (RTA) personal injury scheme to include other personal injury claims through a three-stage procedure for lower value claims, with fixed costs for each stage;

• examining the option of capping RTA personal injury claims to £25,000;

• simplifying risk assessment requirements for ‘low-hazard’ workplaces such as offices, classrooms and shops;

• exempting employers from carrying out risk assessments for home workers in ‘low-hazard environments’;

• exempting the self-employed in “low-hazard businesses” from risk assessments;

• accrediting health and safety consultants and introducing a directory of accredited consultants;

• reviewing the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 to separate out play and leisure from workplace settings;

• reviewing the operation of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) (since replaced by RIDDOR 2013) and extending the period workers are away from work or unable to perform their normal work duties before an injury or accident should be reported, from over three to seven days;

• requiring officials who ban events on health and safety grounds to put their reasons in writing and for those affected to have a route for redress;

• enhancing the role of the HSE in large multi-site retail businesses;

• combining local authority food safety and health and safety inspections; and

• ensuring that police officers and firefighters are not at risk of investigation or prosecution “as a result of committing a heroic act.”

Many of his recommendations are now law and set out throughout the booklet.

The Löfstedt review

A second review, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and chaired by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, director of the Kings Centre for Risk Management at King’s College London, the Löfstedt review: Reclaiming health and safety for all, was published in November 2011.

The review’s remit was very narrow — to consider “opportunities for reducing the burden of health and safety legislation on UK business while maintaining progress to date in improving health and safety outcomes”. Löfstedt was not asked to look at opportunities to improve worker health and safety.

The review concluded that “in general, there is no case for radically altering current health and safety legislation” and that the law as it stands is “broadly fit for purpose”. It also concluded that roughly a 35% reduction in volume of health and safety regulation could be achieved through a process of simplification and consolidation.

Despite a guarded welcome of the review’s principal conclusions from the trade unions, they had significant concerns about some of its more detailed recommendations and its use by the coalition government to justify further attacks on the safety inspection and enforcement regime.

The coalition government responded to the conclusions of the Löfstedt review almost immediately, publishing its formal response in November 2011. It promised to implement all the recommendations and announced a plan to cut the number of health and safety regulations by more than 50%, through “sector specific consolidation” (up from the 35% originally proposed by Löfstedt).

Although the government had limited room to manoeuvre, since most health and safety regulation is based on European Union (EU) Directives, many of the Löfstedt recommendations are now law and are set out throughout this booklet.