|
A Short Overview of Health & Safety Law
The basis of British health and safety law is the Health
and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The Act sets out the
general duties for employers towards employees and members of
the public as well as the duties that employees have to themselves
and each other. These duties are qualified in the
Act by the principle of 'so far as is reasonably practicable'.
In other words, the degree of risk involved in carrying out a
particular job needs to be balanced against the time, trouble,
cost and physical difficulty of taking measures to avoid or reduce
the risk. From this Act came the principal requirement for employers
of 5 or more people to produce a written health and safety policy.
Modern health and safety law in this country, including much
of that from Europe, is based on the principle of Risk
Assessment. What the law therefore requires here
is considered to be what good management and common sense should
lead employers to do anyway. That is, to look at what the
risks are and take sensible measures to tackle them.
The HSW etc Act 1974, however, is merely the framework upon
which all other legislation is based. It is what is referred
to as an enabling Act. In 1992, a number of very
important sets of Regulations were issued that were a
result of six European directives that make explicit that
which was implicit in the HSW etc Act, 1974. These regulations
quickly became known as the "Six Pack".
Perhaps the most important one out of these six is The
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992
(since amended in 1999) sometimes referred to as the 'Mother'
of the other five. This particular set of regulations clearly
laid out the duties of the employer (and the employees) and is
fundamental to the requirements of any business. In essence,
the law regards the owner(s) of a business to be the experts
and therefore to be the best judge of how to operate their business
in a safe manner. Failure to do so puts the owner(s) firmly
in the seat of responsibility. Hence, the regulations stress
the word 'Management'.
In order to help produce a more level playing field in assessing
whether employers are acting responsibly, many sets of regulations
come with ACOP's or Approved Codes of Practice. These
help to further clarify that which is expected of employers and
employees and 'what is reasonably practicable', as they
offer both advice and examples. They also have a special legal
status, as it is the ACOP's that are the basis of court judgements
if the relevant provisions contained within them are not followed.
The great difficulty for all businesses to comply with health
& safety legislation is knowing what the laws are (and there
are many) and how best to translate them into everyday working
operations. Large organisations overcome this by appointing a
board of directors, usually with one director specifically qualified
and trained to implement and monitor health & safety throughout
the company or group of companies. Small businesses, on the other
hand, simply do not have the resources to employ such full-time
qualified personnel, nor can any Owner/MD afford the considerable
amount of time required to both attain proficiency in and keep
abreast of rapidly changing legislation. Yet the level of
compliance expectation remains the same. Furthermore, legislation
demands that every organisation must appoint, or work with, a
'competent person' given as:
Competent Person: must have the knowledge, ability
and resources to be able to undertake the tasks. (Resources means
'time and materials'. Materials include such things as copies
of relevant legislation, regulations, approved codes of practice,
guidance notes, measuring equipment etc)
Ultimately, health & safety is not just about legislation.
It is purpose designed to reduce accidents (thereby reducing
lost work time and improving productivity), improve working conditions
(and hence better efficiency and a boost to morale) and encourage
awareness of the effects of any of our actions. The risks to
any business through non-compliance is (now) very significant
indeed, with exceptionally large fines, closure in some instances
and jail sentences for directors/owners etc. Equally, the risks
to any business through serious accidents, uninsured losses,
loss of key personnel, damage to property etc. is just as significant.
The cost of putting in and maintaining an effective health and
safety system is far outweighed by the eventual cost (and not
just financial) of not doing so.
It is worth noting that any HSE Inspector visiting premises
that have NOT made any effort to embrace legislation, much of
which has now been around for a long time, is likely to come
down hard, especially if an accident has been the trigger for
such a visit. Equally, those organisations that HAVE embraced
health & safety seriously can expect help, guidance and support
from them. However, incidents that are the subject of investigation
by them, whatever their source, will still be dealt with unsympathetically
if it can be shown that no attempt had been made to assess all
the risks associated with the workplace operations. This approach
is hardening with each passing year and will become an ever increasing
mountain to climb for any organisation that ignores it.
It simply will not go away.
Back to The Dilemma for SME's
Forward to What we can offer you
back to Bob Angel's Page
|
