Health and safety reviews under the Coalition government 2010-2015



The Coalition government used two reviews to justify its attacks on health and safety legislation and the safety inspection and enforcement regime.
The reviews resulted in many changes to health and safety law which are set out throughout this booklet.


The Young review



Lord Young’s Common sense: common safety was published by the prime minister’s office in October 2010. It set out 36 recommendations, including the following:


• 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 at £25,000;


• simplifying risk assessment requirements for so-called “low-hazard” workplaces such as offices, classrooms and shops;


• exempting employers from carrying out risk assessments for homeworkers in so-called “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 HSWA to separate out play and leisure from workplace settings;


• reviewing the operation of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) and extending the period a person is away from work or unable to perform their normal work duties, before an injury or accident must be reported from over three to over 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.”



The TUC said the report “uncritically accepts the myths and preconceptions surrounding health and safety and focuses on dealing with a compensation culture which the government accepts does not exist.” But criticism of the Young Review by trade unions and health and safety experts was largely ignored and many of the recommendations are now law, as set out throughout this booklet.



The Löfstedt review 



Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, director of the Kings Centre for Risk Management at King’s College London, published the results of his review, Reclaiming health and safety for all, in November 2011. His remit was 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”. He was not asked to look at opportunities to improve worker health and safety.



He concluded, “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”. He also concluded that a reduction in the volume of health and safety regulation of around a third could be achieved through simplification and consolidation.



Despite giving some of the review’s principal conclusions a guarded welcome, unions had significant concerns about some of its more detailed recommendations and the potential for it to be used by the government to justify further attacks on the safety inspection and enforcement regime.



The government responded to the Löfstedt review almost immediately, promising to implement all the recommendations and announcing 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). Again, many of the recommendations are now law and are set out throughout this booklet. Some of the changes implemented by the government went beyond Löfstedt’s original recommendations, and he effectively disowned some, such as the removal of workers’ ability to bring civil claims for personal injury based on breaches of health and safety regulations, described on pages 13-14).