‘Revitalising Health and Safety at Work'
An Evaluation of the Government’s/HSC’s Response to Consultation
Annex 3 - ‘Revitalising Health and Safety : strategy statement’ June 2000 - Key themes and action points
There are ten key themes in ‘revitalising health and safety at work’ which can be summarised as follows:
- Promotion of better working environments.
- Enhancing the contribution of workforce health and safety to productivity and competitiveness.
- Giving top priority to occupational health (to be covered in the HSC’s ten year strategy for OH).
- Securing the positive engagement of small firms.
- Using the compensation, benefits and insurance systems to motivate employers.
- Promoting a culture of self regulation through integration of OS&H within management systems.
- Promoting greater partnership on OS&H issues, between employers and employees and other OS&H system players.
- Government departments leading OS&H improvement by demonstrating best practice and promoting this via the supply chain in the context of procurement.
- Embedding effective coverage of safety and risk concepts in education at all levels - from schools education through to business and professional education.
- Rolling out the key principles in the Construction Design and Management Regulations to other areas with a heavy reliance on contracting.
There are also 44 specific action points as follows:
Action Point 1
The Health and Safety Commission will publish and promote a Ready Reckoner supported by case studies to drive home the business case for better health and safety management.
Action Point 2
The Health and Safety Commission will promote publication of guidance, by March 2001, to allow large businesses to report publicly to a common standard on health and safety issues. The Government and the Health and Safety Commission challenge the top 350 businesses to report to these standards by the end of 2002, and will then work to extend this to all businesses with more than 250 employees by 2004.
Action Point 3
The Health and Safety Commission will undertake a fundamental review of the health and safety incident reporting regulations.
Action Point 4
The Health and Safety Commission will advise Ministers what steps can be taken to enable companies, if they wish, to check their health and safety management arrangements against an established 'yardstick'. This work will include examination of the implications for small firms and the role standards can play in addressing their needs.
Action Point 5
The Health and Safety Commission will consider how best to involve the insurance industry more closely in its work, including the possibility of representation on the Commission's advisory committees.
Action Point 6
The Government will work with the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that a larger number of inspectors have powers to enforce the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) legislation.
Action Point 7
The Government will seek an early legislative opportunity,. as Parliamentary time allows, to provide the courts with greater sentencing powers for health and safety crimes. The key measures envisaged are to extend the £20,000 maximum fine in the lower courts to a much wider range of offences which currently attract a maximum penalty of £5,000; and to provide the courts with the power to imprison for most health and safety offences.
Action Point 8
The Health and Safety Executive will monitor and draw public attention to trends in prosecution, convictions and penalties imposed by the Courts, by publishing a special annual report. This will 'name and shame' companies and individuals convicted in the previous twelve months. This information will also be available on the Health and Safety Executive's Website.
Action Point 9
The Health and Safety Commission will advise Ministers on the feasibility of consultees' proposals for more innovative penalties.
Action Point 10
The Government will consider an amendment to the 1974 Act (when Parliamentary time allows) to enable private prosecutions in England and Wales to proceed without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Action Point 11
The Health and Safety Commission will develop a code of practice on Directors' responsibilities for health and safety, in consultation with stakeholders. It is intended that the code of practice will, in particular, stipulate that organisations should appoint an individual Director for health and safety or responsible person of similar status (for example in organisations where there is no board of Directors). The Health and Safety Commission will also advise Ministers on how the law would need to be changed to make these responsibilities statutory so that Directors and responsible persons of similar status are clear about what is expected of them in their management of health and safety. It is the intention of Ministers, when Parliamentary time allows, to introduce legislation on these responsibilities.
Action Point 12
Ministers and the Health and Safety Commission will endorse a health and safety checklist along the lines of the one at Annex B, subject to consultation with the relevant trades unions and other relevant stakeholders, for circulation to all Government Departments and all public bodies, including local authorities and health authorities, as a catalyst for improvement. Ministers will be advised of the results of this exercise.
Action Point 13
All public bodies will summarise their health and safety performance and plans in their Annual Reports, starting no later than the report for 2000/01.
Action Point 14
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, in partnership with the Health and Safety Executive, will pioneer a High Level Forum to provide leadership on health and safety management issues within the Civil Service.
Action Point 15
The Government will seek a legislative opportunity, when Parliamentary time allows, to remove Crown immunity from statutory health and safety enforcement. Until immunity is removed, the relevant Minister will be advised whenever Crown censures are made.
Action Point 16
The Health and Safety Commission will consider further whether the 1974 Act should be amended, as Parliamentary time allows, in response to the changing world of work, in particular to ensure the same protection is provided to all workers regardless of their employment status; and will consider how the principles of good management promoted by the Construction, Design and Management Regulations approach can be encouraged in other key sectors. Ministers will be advised accordingly.
Action Point 17
The Government will ask the Learning and Skills Council, in consultation with the Health and Safety Commission, to undertake an early review of the funding and provision of training for safety representatives. In light of the conclusions of this work, the Scottish Executive and the National Assembly for Wales will consider, whether to change the arrangements in Scotland and Wales.
Action Point 18
The Health and Safety Executive will take further action to publicise the right of workers to contact them, particularly in the context of the new protection provided by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
Action Point 19
The new Clients' Charter to be launched later in the year as part of the Movement for Innovation in the construction industry, will include targets on health and safety to drive up standards. Government Departments and their sponsored bodies will sign up to the Charter, as part of their Achieving Excellence action plans and in demonstration of their support for the Health and Safety Commission's Working Well Together campaign. The Government will consider how this approach can be rolled out to other areas of procurement.
Action Point 20
The Local Government Construction Task Force will consider how health and safety issues can be most effectively factored into construction procurement by local government.
Action Point 21
The Health and Safety Executive will produce guidance for government departments and other public bodies on how best to achieve exemplary standards of health and safety in construction projects with which they have an involvement.
Action Point 22
The Health and Safety Commission will take action, consulting the new Small Business Service in England, to improve arrangements for ensuring that the views of small firms are fully taken into account in policy formulation; and will seek to identify areas of regulation that affect small firms and can be simplified without lowering standards.
Action Point 23
Within the framework set by the Nolan procedures for public, appointments, the Government will seek to enhance representation of small firms on the Health and Safety Commission.
Action Point 24
The Health and Safety Commission and the new Small Business Service will work in partnership to secure an effective profile for occupational health and safety within the Small Business Service both centrally and at local level. Similar work will also be taken forward in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Scottish Executive and the Business Connect network in Wales.
Action Point 25
The Health and Safety Commission and Executive will promote positive models of how small firms can benefit from effective health and safety management, through a range of information products including clear, straightforward sector-specific guidance supported by case studies.
Action Point 26
The Health and Safety Commission will advise Ministers on the design of a grant scheme to encourage investment by small firms in better health and safety management.
Action Point 27
The Health and Safety Commission will work with local authorities to propose an indicator against which the performance of local authority enforcement and promotional activity in England, Scotland and Wales can be measured.
Action Point 28
The Health and Safety Commission will work with a range of Government departments and other partners to promote and implement fully the new Occupational Health strategy for Great Britain.
Action Point 29
The Government will encourage better access to occupational health support, and promote coverage of occupational health in local Health Improvement Programmes and Primary Care Group strategies in England, as recommended by the Health and Safety Commission's Occupational Health Advisory Committee.
Action Point 30
As part of the next stage of the New Deal for Disabled People, the Government is considering how best to strengthen retention and rehabilitation services for people in work who become disabled or have persistent sickness.
Action Point 31
The Health and Safety Commission will consult on whether the duty on employers under health and safety law to ensure the continuing health of employees at work, including action to rehabilitate where appropriate, can usefully be clarified or strengthened. For example, organisations might be required to set out their approach to rehabilitation within their health and safety policy.
Action Point 32
The Health and Safety Commission will work in partnership with the Department for Education and Employment and the Disability Rights Commission to ensure that health and safety law is never used as a false 'excuse' for not employing disabled people, or continuing to employ those whose capacity for work is damaged by their employment, for example by highlighting this point in relevant publications and guidance.
Action Point 33
The revised National Curricula in England (from September 2000) and Wales (from August 2000) will include more extensive coverage of risk concepts and health and safety skills at every level.
Action Point 34
The Government and Health and Safety Commission will act to ensure that safety-critical professionals such as architects and engineers receive adequate education in risk management. This will be delivered through a programme of direct approaches to relevant higher and further education institutions and professional institutions.
Action Point 35
The Health and Safety Commission will work with the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and Regional Development Agencies in England to ensure that: - health and safety considerations are taken into account in policy making at national and regional level, for example in economic policy and public health initiatives; and - national and regional interests are appropriately reflected in the Health and Safety Commission's work.
Action Point 36
In line with the requirement of the Modernising Government White Paper, the Health and Safety Executive will consider the feasibility of reorganising its regional structure in England so that it is co-terminus with that of the Regional Development Agencies, with the aim of facilitating more effective regional and sub-regional liaison.
Action Point 37
Within the framework set by the Nolan procedures for public appointments, the Government will seek to ensure a balance of representation on the Health and Safety Commission from Scotland, Wales and the English Regions.
Action Point 38
The Health and Safety Commission will hold some meetings in public each year.
Action Point 39
To enable greater openness, the Health and Safety Commission aims to take the opportunity presented by powers in the Freedom of Information Bill to remove restrictions on disclosure of information imposed by Section 28 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Action Point 40
The Government will develop proposals for sharing with health and safety regulators information about business start-ups held by other authorities, by March 2001.
Action Point 41
The Government will incorporate health and safety guidance into the new Cabinet Office integrated policy appraisal system, and establish a 'virtual health and safety network' of key Whitehall contacts to enable rapid electronic dissemination of information.
Action Point 42
The Health and Safety Executive and the Government will act in partnership to increase the number of staff secondments arranged between the Health and Safety Executive and central or local government, industry or trades unions.
Action Point 43
In implementing this Strategy Statement, the Government and the Health and Safety Executive will ensure that all sections of society - including women, ethnic minorities and disabled people - are treated fairly; and will work in partnership with the Cabinet Office to pilot a new approach to gender mainstreaming.
Action Point 44
The Government and the Health and Safety Commission and Executive will work together to explore options for organisational change to address these issues.
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