September Net

The report titled Regulatory Surrender: death, injury and the non-enforcement of law’ compiled by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University has pointed out that the modifications in health and safety laws made over the past ten years have jeopardized workplace safety.

The report details how changes in the legislation have also affected the Health and Safety Executive’s capacity to enforce health and safety laws in workplaces. The examiners at Liverpool found that there had been a 69% fall in the number of investigations being carried out in business premises, while the number of investigations of incidents regarding health and safety had fallen by 68%. Also, the report highlighted that the number of prosecutions of the companies violating the HSE guidelines had fallen by 48%.

After the incessant complaints about the legislations made by the Labour government regarding health and safety, the government responded to these complaints by announcing a review of the health and safety regulations in the UK. However, the findings of the studies conducted at Liverpool imply that the power of HSE to create and enforce health and safety rules has decreased and this has led to an increase in the number of risks to employees due to the dangers at the workplace.

The loss in power in case of the HSE has in turn caused a decrease in the number of safety offenders at the workplace to be caught and tried for their offence, said Dr David Whyte, Reader in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. Many offences go unnoticed and only a third of them are investigated by the HSE presently.

Workplace Law Training & Consulting is equipped to provide professionally accredited training in key areas of workplace law and practice - see NEBOSH e-learning - for information on their web-based training course accredited by the National Examination Board for Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH).