Huge decline in HSE and LA Safety Inspections

[TrueBlueTerrier]

TB 098/13 Huge decline in HSE and LA Safety Inspections - 77% Fall in LA Proactive Inspections across All Premises:

To view this download, please click here
No. 098/13
Ref EX5/13
Date: 18 February 2013
To: All Branches
Dear Colleague
Huge decline in HSE and LA Safety Inspections - 77% Fall in LA Proactive Inspections across All Premises:


The number of local authority (LA) proactive safety inspections of high risk 'category A' premises has fallen 44 per cent, according to new figures, with 1-in-5 (20%) of local authorities admitting to undertaking no proactive health and safety inspections at all.


The report was produced by HELA, the Health and Safety Executive's Local Authority liaison committee,


HSE's 'Delivering health and safety reform' report, published this week, indicated there is official concern at the dramatic decline. HSE, which has cut its own proactive health and safety inspections by a third, noted: "LA regulators have also reduced their safety inspections of companies and organisations from 70,700 in 2011/12 to a projected 6,400 in 2012/13 based on mid-year returns.


The reduction follows a series of government policies designed to cut back on health and safety inspections. Under proposals set out in a national enforcement code, local authorities will be prevented from carrying out any proactive inspections at low-risk premises. The number of inspections at low-risk premises - category B2 or C - fell from 49,419 to 10,245. HELA committee members fear that government will tell Councils to stop carrying out so called low-risk premises Inspections all together. Another concern
is that Councils will be unable to retain Environment Health Officers with the necessary competence with so few Inspections being carried out. Inspectors will soon not have enough experience to maintain their competency. And inspection numbers are set to drop still further, as gradually all Local Authorities will come fully into line with the HSE directions on cutting health and safety Inspection visits. The HELA report shows a 30 per cent drop in accident investigation visits, and a 67 per cent drop in all health and safety visits. How far does the government wish the loss in public protection to go?

It is alarming to consider this when we have just had the disaster in The Kiss Night Club in Santa Maria in Brazil, where 231 lives were lost. Control of pyrotechnics in entertainment venues comes within the ambit of health and safety enforcement in the UK, not fire safety legislation. Under the draft enforcement code, local authorities would be barred from making routing proactive checks on such things as pyrotechnics.'
HSE is now consulting on proposals for a statutory National LA Enforcement Code that is based on the same principles used to direct HSE's inspection activities.


The local authority statistics, published in a report considered at HSE's January 2013 board meeting, estimated councils will have carried out 2,560 proactive inspections at so called high risk premises in 2012/13, compared to 4,560 in the previous year. The number of safety inspections at so called lower risk category B2 or C premises fell from 49,419 to a projected figure of 10,245. The overall number of proactive inspections across all premises fell by 77 per cent and a fifth (20%) of local authorities carried out no proactive inspections at all.


Enforcement agencies were instructed by government to cut proactive inspections by a third, but these official figures point to a collapse in local authority health and safety inspections.


Trade Unions and the Hazards Campaign agreed that the figures were "horrifying" and that the fall in inspections was far higher than the 33 per cent demanded by the government.


The role of proactive health and safety inspections as part of an effective enforcement regime and is there to check up on employers' legal compliance, protect workers, lead to improvements and also save employers money. They also deliver justice and deterrence, reward good employers and weed out the rogues. A fall in scrutiny of this magnitude only rewards the bad employer who would only rewards the bad employers who will drop safety standards for workers and the public alike and who will pass on the cost to the workers, the community and the public purse.


The fact that 20% of local authorities carry out no proactive safety inspection of workplaces at all is a shocking and totally unacceptable retreat from enforcement and protection, exposing workers in those areas to increased risk of ill-health and injury.
Workplace health and safety also affects the public who are being put at unrecognised but increased risk, as the legionnaires outbreaks starkly show.


The marked decline in inspections of high risk local authority enforced workplaces casts doubt on claims by new Coalition Government Health and Safety minister Mark Hoban who claimed that the overall fall in inspections was justified because the "focus should be where risks are high."


Yours sincerely




Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer