Targeted enforcement

Enforcement resources are now targeted at the most “hazardous” workplaces. However, unions and safety campaigners have expressed concern that particular sectors have been identified as “low risk” (and so in no need of proactive inspection) without any obvious reason.

The DWP reported in 2014 that “major hazard” industries will continue to be regulated at a high level and will continue to be subject to unannounced inspection, although a “light-touch” approach is to be adopted for “responsible businesses” that “do the right thing”. Examples given of “major hazard” industries are construction, waste, recycling and certain areas of high-risk manufacturing, for example molten and base metal manufacture.

Research by Dr David Whyte at the University of Liverpool found that pro-active safety checks by HSE inspectors has fallen in workplaces in “high risk” sectors as well as those in the so-called “low risk” sectors. He described this as an “emasculation of enforcement”.

His research, based on Freedom of Information requests to the HSE, revealed that between 2006-07 and 2012-13, the number of inspection records logged by the safety watchdog’s Hazardous Installations Division (HID) fell by almost half (48%). This includes inspections in the chemicals industry and mines.

While he acknowledged that HSE inspection records do not simply capture absolute numbers of inspections, he says that they are a good indication of the total number of sites subject to inspection.

“We can use those figures as an indication of the coverage given to the range of hazardous sites that HSE is responsible for. And the picture is a bleak one for workers in those industries,” he said.