OPINION: REGULATIONS
SAFETY FIRST
How will the Löfstedt Report on health and safety legislation impact on the construction sector? Hywel Davies looks at the recommendations
The coalition government came to power with a promise to
reduce burdens on business. One of its early acts was to ask Lord Young of Grafham to conduct a review of health and safety legislation and the compensation culture. Lord Young recommended that government should seek to reduce the burden of bureaucracy on businesses. As a result, Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, a leading risk management specialist, was appointed to propose appropriate ways to simplify the existing raft of health and safety legislation. The Löfstedt Report is based on
a review of science and risk-based evidence, which included more than 250 responses to an open call, meetings with more than 30 individual stakeholders, and wider stakeholder gatherings chaired by the professor. He also accompanied inspectors on various inspection visits, studied the available scientific literature, and spoke to other health and safety regulators and policy makers in Sweden, the EU and at the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in Bilbao. The report’s 26 recommendations
focus on high-risk activities to reduce and simplify regulatory requirements on business. Löfstedt is clear that any changes should not lead to a reduction in health and safety protection. The headline conclusion is that
there is no evidence for radically altering current health and safety legislation. This was the overwhelming view expressed by a wide range of stakeholders, including employers. Given the government’s focus on costs to business, Löfstedt specifically points out that ‘there is evidence that work-related ill health and injury is itself a considerable burden on business (as well as a cost to society more generally) and that
24 CIBSE Journal March 2012
the regulatory regime offers vital protection to employees and the public’. The report also highlights other
factors that may cause businesses to go beyond what regulations require. These include inconsistent enforcement by regulators and the influence of third parties promoting generation of unnecessary paperwork. Six key recommendations highlight
areas that need to be addressed by the government. These are summarised below, along with an indication of the government response. A. Exempting from health and safety law those self-employed whose work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others. The report quite specifically excludes from this category self-employment on construction sites (although a self-employed consultant working from home is within the scope of this change). B. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) should review all its Approved Codes of Practice (ACoPs). The initial phase of the review should be completed by June 2012, so businesses have certainty about what is planned and when changes can be anticipated. The government has indicated that it intends to do this to the timetable proposed. This means that, for example, the ACoP L8 on legionella will be reviewed. C. HSE to undertake a programme of sector specific consolidations to be completed by April 2015. Löfstedt reports that there are 46%
fewer health and safety regulations than in 1974 (when the Health and Safety at Work etc Act was passed). Government has accepted this recommendation and committed to reducing the number of health and safety regulations by a further 50%. For the construction sector, the proposed review will address
the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981, the Construction (Head protection) Regulations 1989, the Working at Height Regulations 2005, the Notification of Tower Cranes Regulations 2010, and the Notification of Conventional Tower Cranes (Amendment) Regulations 2010. D. Legislation to be changed to give the HSE the authority to direct all local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement activity, in order to ensure consistency and focus on the most risky businesses. This is primarily aimed at ending variations in enforcement by local authorities, which give rise to many of the more extreme stories about health and safety enforcement. E. Clarification of pre-action standard disclosure (Woolf) lists a review of regulatory provisions that impose strict liability by June 2013. This recommendation is accepted. F. Those responsible for developing impact assessments should be different from those who have drafted the directives or regulations. The government accepts the principle, and considers that for UK legislation this is addressed by the Regulatory Policy Committee. In Europe, it is working with the Commission to achieve similar outcomes. The first three of these are likely to
WEB LINKS
The Department of Work and Pensions published Professor Löfstedt’s report, Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety regulation on 28 November 2011. See www.
dwp.gov.uk/docs/ lofstedt-report.pdf
have the most immediate and direct impact on the construction sector. The review of ACoP L8 on legionella will be particularly relevant to the revision of CIBSE TM13: Minimising the risk of Legionnaires’ disease, which is currently underway. CIBSE will also be working with the Construction Industry Council to contribute to the wider review of legislation, in particular the CDM Regulations.
l HYWEL DAVIES is technical director of CIBSE
www.cibse.org
www.cibsejournal.com
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