National Enforcement Code

The HSE’s statutory National Enforcement Code for local authorities came into force in 2013 and targets proactive council inspections on “higher risk” activities in specified sectors, or when there is intelligence of workplaces putting employees or the public at risk. In fact, the statutory code explicitly outlaws proactive inspections outside “high risk areas” by both the HSE and local authority regulators and exempts hundreds of thousands of businesses from “burdensome” health and safety inspections. Businesses are now only inspected if they are operating in high-risk areas, such as construction, or if they have a poor safety record.

If “low-risk” businesses believe they are being unreasonably targeted they can complain to an independent panel, which will investigate and issue a public judgment and the HSE will “work with” local authorities whose targeting of inspections fails to meet the standards set out.

The TUC said that the coalition government was breaking international rules requiring the safety inspections of all workplaces. It referred to a recent ruling by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), relating to a complaint by the Dutch trade unions concerning their government’s failure to comply with a number of ILO conventions. This states that: “Workplaces shall be inspected as often and as thoroughly as is necessary to ensure the effective application of the relevant legal provisions”.

The ILO ruled that the Dutch government was breaching the convention’s requirements because of its failings on the number and frequency of inspections, the support provided for inspectors and the system for notification of occupational diseases, the TUC reports. And it says, the ILO also stressed the importance of unannounced inspections, noting that the provisions applied to “all workplaces, particularly in enterprises that are not considered to be in high-risk sectors and in small enterprises.”

TUC head of health and safety Hugh Robertson said that the majority of UK workplaces are now exempt from unannounced inspections and that: “Many of the arguments used by the Dutch trade unionists apply equally or even more so in the UK, where the coalition government has slashed inspections, while at the same time reducing the number of HSE officers and level of support available. The Dutch government has been told to put their house in order. We will be asking the UK government to do the same.”