Health and safety gone mad?

Some forty years have now elapsed since the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 1974 finally became law.

In recent times the legislation has come under significant and sustained attack from the Conservative-led coalition government. Cries of ‘health and safety gone mad’ are not uncommon with the popularist stories and political rhetoric expounded through the likes of the Daily Mail and Daily Express publications.

Perhaps now is the perfect point at which to stop and assess whether this legislation has actually achieved what it set out to do? Are the tabloid headlines exaggerations, merely intended to spark outrage, or are they a true reflection of how a well-intended point of law has been taken to extremes?

High risk

In 1969, just before the inception of the legislation, there were 513,000 recorded deaths and injuries at work in the United Kingdom. This figure represented a 14 per cent increase on the 461,000 incidents in 1961. With startling figures such as these, there is no doubt that something needed to be done to safeguard employees, particularly in high-risk industries.

If we are to make a fair assessment of the impact this legislation has had on safety standards in work environments over the past 40 years, then perhaps we should bring ourselves up to date.

Here are a few current statistics, as published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), worthy of consideration:

• 133 workers killed at work in the UK during 2013/14.
• 2,535 mesothelioma deaths occurred in the UK in 2012 due to past asbestos exposures.
• 78,000 other injuries to employees were reported in the UK under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) in the 2012/13 reporting period.
• 175,000 reportable injuries (over-seven-day absence) occurred in the UK during 2012/2013.
• 1.1 million working people were suffering from a work-related illness in the UK during 2012/13.
• 27 million working days were lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury in the UK during 2011/12.
• Workplace injuries and ill health (excluding cancer) cost UK society an estimated £13.8bn in 2010/11.

Such a dramatic fall in recorded workplace deaths and injuries would suggest there are nothing but positives to be drawn from the HSWA. Therefore, is it really the case that we have a ‘nanny state’restricting both individuals and businesses from succeeding and prospering?

Is the reality not in fact that we are seeing reference to health and safety strategically invoked by those seeking convenient justification for decision making and to serve other interested parties, such as the Association of British Insurers (ABI)?

It strikes me that those best placed to comment on the efficacy of the HSWA are people such as the families of Richard Calsen (aged 25), Matthew Fullilove (aged 30), or John Haslam (aged 24). These young men represent just three of the 83 individuals who tragically lost their lives within the 2014/15 period, as reported by the HSE.

If anyone is to influence government policy, surely it should be people like these who have been directly affected by the issues under discussion? Are they not better placed to comment on, inform and influence the future of HSWA than those who simply lobby the loudest or who fill the party coffers the fullest?

Tight control

There is still an absolute need for tight controls and regulations around workplace safety. Let us look, for example, at the first four days of December 2014. In this short period alone we see reported prosecutions by the HSE that include:

• a developer, a scaffolding company, its director and a roofer, who were sentenced after a worker fell seven metres to his death in Staffordshire;
• a shop-fitting firm that was fined after an Oxford Street hoarding collapsed less than 24 hours after it was erected;
• a laundry company that was prosecuted after a woman lost four fingers when her hand was drawn into a poorly guarded ironing machine;
• an Edinburgh firm prosecuted after safety failings left a worker severely injured and blind in one eye;
• a firm in County Durham that was fined after a construction project worker was injured when he became trapped between the basket of a cherry picker and a steel railing;
• two companies that were fined after a lorry driver suffered multiple injuries while loading his lorry;
• a Berkshire construction firm prosecuted after three workers were photographed on a roof and ladder platform without any safety measures; and,
• an engineering company fined for safety breaches after an employer was seriously injured when he fell more than four metres while dismantling a recycling cabin.

Sadly, history, as well as the examples listed above, appears to confirm that employers alone cannot be relied upon to improve or maintain a safe working environment. A focus on keeping costs down to remain competitive during economic bleak spots can all too easily push health and safety concerns to the bottom of the pile, with businesses struggling to find the cash to finance precautionary measures.

The consequence is that there is a very real need for the state to play a role in outlining and enforcing guidelines on maintaining a safe working environment, in this case through the HSE.

This need was most recently highlighted in December by the prosecution of Conrad Sidebottom, the commercial director of construction company Siday. Sidebottom was found guilty of manslaughter at Southwark County Court after his employee Anghel Milosavlevici was fatally crushed. Trench walls where Milosavlevici was working had not been properly supported and collapsed upon him.

Sidebottom was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of three years and three months, while his co-defendant Richard Golding, a self-employed health and safety consultant, was also sentenced to nine months imprisonment for failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of others.

So, while the tabloid headlines may incite mockery of the HSWA, the purpose, and more importantly the people, it serves remains very real. Are the ‘nanny state’ jibes levelled at the legislation really fair when considered against the numbers of human lives saved? SJ

Andrew Peters is legal manager at Bott & Co Solicitors 

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