UNISON health and safety seminar 2011: Judith Hackett on the cuts and charging for enforcement?

Today the national UNISON Health & Safety Seminar took place at the ICC in Birmingham. There were around 250 delegates from all over the UK and all parts of UNISON. Assistant General Secretary (and member of HSE Board) Liz Snape chaired the seminar. She told us that UNISON has 12,000 safety reps protecting members and although our work is often invisible and behind the scenes are role is absolutely vital. Our keynote speaker was Judith Hackett (left) who is the Chair of the Health & Safety Executive who was described as someone “who says it as it is”. This reminded me of the last time I had heard Judith speak.

Judith also thanked safety reps for the important work that they do. The core mission of the HSE is still to prevent death, serious injuries and work related ill-health. She believes that despite the cuts and recent Coalition reports and pronouncements they still fall with the broad HSE strategy that was started in 2008. Safety reps and managers need to lead in safety matters. Need Joint working such as the “Safe and Sound at work - do your bit” course. In which there is joint training with reps and management. Finding solutions together rather than being confrontational. .  

The Comprehensive Spending Review meant a 35% saving on public funding over the next 4 years. However, a bit of context. 35% cuts are the norm in the Department of Work & Pensions. So we are not being dealt with harsher than anyone else under this remit. She accepts that many of us think there should not be any cuts at all.

1/3 of their work is claimed back already from industry. The cuts apply to the rest. Moving the HSE headquarters from London to Bootle has saved money. 200 HSE staff left in a voluntary exist scheme recently. Rationalisation of estate and cuts in back office services will result in further savings. Recognise the importance of saving front line services as far as we can. Will not change in high risk industries but will look to modernise. Other services we will not change are reactive work including inspections and responses to complaints and reports. Reactive will remain unaffected but somewhere pain is inevitable. Numbers of inspections will have to be will have to be reduced in some areas. Have to target inspections with regard to risk. Compare other possible methods of interventions than individual premise inspections. In some workplaces, pro active inspections remain the best but in other sectors evidence points to effectiveness of other interventions. We will not take decisions in isolation, we will speak to stakeholders. We will learn as we go on. Over time a company or sector may improve performance and receive less attention or if they deteriorate they will receive more. 

On Monday the Minister said the clear intention is to take tough line with those who flout the law. See the idea of cost recovery from firms who do this. We can discuss what “low risk” is. However “low risk” does not mean no risk. In future we may have a supporting role rather than leading role in the production of guidance. Charging for HSE inspections. This is a fair deal. It should be welcomed by vast majority of employers since they claim they are complaint so they have nothing to worry about. It only penalises those who don’t comply. It brings a level playing field with costs. It is another form of enforcement. We may charge for some advice. But will not go back on our policy to make all information and guidance free to download from our web site. Our ideas need to develop and work out the detail and we need to consult. So context again: there is not a 35% reduction in everything we do. We already recover costs so it seems fair to extend this. It puts an increased onus on those who at fault. So they should be charged for the costs we bear to put their house in order.  

Summary. Foolish to deny times are tough. What is still constant is that we both share similar concerns and a “shared mission”. We won’t agree on everything but we all agree on this. Now we need your support and all of you to play your part. To be our eyes and ears. This is not where you want to be but despite the problems we all need to work together and do our bit.

In the Q&A she was asked is it sending the wrong message by saying office’s are “low risk” when many office workers suffer from high stress levels and asbestos is found in offices? She said again that low risk did not mean no risk. It is obvious that the level of risk in a corner shop will be different from that found in a Timber cutting yard.

I asked whether she was suggesting that safety reps should be taking the place of HSE inspectors and if she envisage a “beefed up” role for reps? If so this would maybe help change the governments mind about cutting inspections? She responded by repeating our importance as being their eyes and ears.  

She confirmed that the “Killer Asbestos” campaigns will continue and that she was not sure whether a reduction in RIDDOR reporting from 3 to 7 days was a good idea. But we need to review RIDDOR since there are a lot of problems with it such as under reporting. She dismissed the question that did the cuts mean that the HSE was now a toothless tiger by saying that the organisation has delivered amongst the best health & safety record in the world. Things are not perfect but you should not forget this. The safety system in the UK does not depend on the HSE alone. You do yourself a disservice if you think this. 

'elf & Safety Posters - Falling from Height - Soviet and HSE

Picture of Soviet Union 1930's health and safety poster and modern day HSE equivalent.

Some dangers do not change.

Check out the first historical safety poster in this series here.

'elf and Safety Poster - Soviet Style (1)

Well, I suppose it makes the point in a rather graphic Socialist realism kind of way.

Not the sort of stuff that we would expect to see on our dear old HSE web site but it does make the point.

Would such realistic posters make a difference to health and safety at the workplace? 

Would it change or influence behaviours?

Or do such images just "scapegoat" and lay the blame on individual workers for accidents rather than significant failings in the Company Safety Managment system in place at the time?

Discuss!

(you can guess my view)

Getting rid of 'elf & safety cowboys?

Some sort of "good news" on the safety front for a change.  IOSH report here that a new scheme to accredit "Health and Safety" consultants will be announced in the "next few weeks".  This scheme will be chaired at first by the HSE. 

Currently anyone can call themselves a "safety consultant" and small organisations in particular are prone to being ripped by inexperienced unqualified "cowboys". 

"IOSH members working as consultants will have to be Chartered to join the scheme, so that clients can be confident that they will get advice from someone with a degree level qualification in safety, practical experience, and a formal commitment to Continuing Professional Development".

But the scheme will be "voluntary" and therefore have no real teeth.  Big companies usually (not always) get competent advice.  Small companies and organisations will continue to be sold unsuitable "off the shelf" safety policies and risk assessments that will gather dust on office sleves.   Guess what size organisations tend to have most deaths and serious injuries at work?

This is I suppose a start and better than nothing but it needs to be put on a legal footing and properly regulated.  It should be a criminal offence to sell safety advice without adequate experience and qualifications.  The HSE need to continue to Chair and lead this scheme.  

Trade union safety reps should check on the competency of all advisers employed by their organisation (see SRSC regs Brown Book reg 4A).

"Managers behaviour are key" to getting sick workers back to work

Remember the BBC comedy sketch when Basil Fawlty suggested Sybil that she should enter “Mastermind” and her specialist subject should be “the bleeding obvious”?

This recent "back to basis" guidance on what Managers should do with long term sick workers is from the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personal & Development supported by the Health & Safety Executive amongst others)

"Staying in touch regularly with the individual while they are off sick

• Reassuring them that their job is safe

• Preventing them from rushing back to work before they are ready

• Providing a phased return to work

• Helping them adjust to the workplace at a gradual pace

• Asking the individual's permission to keep the team informed on their condition

• Encouraging colleagues to support the individual's rehabilitation

• Holding regular meetings to discuss the individual's condition and the possible impact on their work"

I would add regular consultation with trade union reps as also being key but all of this is a welcome start.

"We didn't Vote to Die at Work"

I've just joined this health and safety Facebook group set up by Hazards.

This is what it is about...'We didn't vote to die at work' is the Hazards Campaign's response to the Con-Dem government attacks on workplace safety and health. We need to fight against: deregulation; the misrepresentation of health and safety as silly red tape instead of our human right; the lie that health and safety is a burden on business; and cuts in enforcement that are proposed by the new coalition government.

The coalition is moving on many fronts, including Lord Young's review of health and safety, Vince Cable's deregulatory review of all regulation, Nick Clegg's requests to name a law to be cut, and the overall massive cuts in budgets which will reduce funding for the enforcement agencies - the HSE, local authorities, the rail regulator and others. The Health Protection Agency, which covers many occupation-related issues like radiation exposure and pandemics, has already gone. Health and safety is not a burden on business. Good health and safety pays for itself. When it comes to poor health and safety, business does not face so significant a burden - because business externalises the cost onto us all, paying less than 25 per cent of the costs arising from work-related deaths, diseases and injuries. Instead, it engages in cost shifting to the victims, their families, the public purse and the community as a whole".