IIRSM none to happy with Government stopping Safety Inspections

IIRSM Press Release

Government proposes to stop

health & safety inspections for small businesses

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has announced that small businesses will no longer be subject to health and safety inspections unless they are in a high risk activity or have a poor record of previous incidents. This seems to go further that the proposals for this sector in Professor Löfstedt’s report and coupled with the major cuts to the HSE and EHOs looks as though the worst suspicions about the Governments intentions may be correct.

Although the Government is keen to remove what they see as the ‘burden’ of health and safety from small businesses it is the SME sector which employs most of the UK workforce. Do we really want to see the majority of our workers with no protection? Although the UK legislative approach is based on assessing and preventing the risk we have always acknowledged that we need this to be supported by a fair enforcement system which is aimed at being part of this preventive approach. Even though these small businesses can

still be held to account for worker injuries is it not too late after the incident has happened.

Is this not also short sighted from the perspective of the business? For years now, all parties in health and safety, HSE, professional organisation, trade unions etc., have been preaching the message that good health and safety management is good for business; now it appears that the Government is sending out the opposite message in spite of the comments of its own review committees. Surely constructive inspections represent a valuable source of support for small businesses.

In May this year, US OSHA published a report from a joint study by University of California and Harvard University which demonstrate the value of inspections in terms both of the numbers of injuries and of the cost to both businesses and society. The study covered companies of all sizes and demonstrated an average saving to a business of $355,000 (£222,000) pa. The study can be found on the OSHA website at

www.osha.gov/as/opa/quicktakes/qt05292012sis.html.

It is interesting that this announcement has been made at the start of the TUC Conference. It will be interesting to see what comments there are particularly from those unions with members in SMEs.

IIRSM Press Release 10.9.12