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”. The review 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. The TUC welcomed the broad conclusion in support of the existing legal framework for health and safety law and supported the review’s commitment to consolidating and simplifying health and safety regulation and guidance, as long as this did not reduce or undermine worker protection.

Despite this guarded welcome of the review’s principal conclusions, unions have significant concerns about some of its more detailed recommendations and that it is being used to justify further attacks on the safety inspection and enforcement regime.

The 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). In practice, the government has limited room to manoeuvre, since most health and safety regulation is based on EU Directives.

In February 2013, the DWP published Reclaiming health and safety for all: a review of progress one year on. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) said the report was a “missed opportunity” to voice strong concerns about government plans to change health and safety regulations. IOSH head of policy and public affairs Richard Jones said: “We are disappointed that Professor Löfstedt has not taken this opportunity to voice strong concerns about the speed and scale of the review implementation raised by IOSH and others, and to urge a government rethink.”