• • • SAFETY IN ENGINEERING • • •
Best practice for safety in engineering: Regulation
By Bill Dunkerley, director in the regulatory team at law firm, Pannone Corporate
I
n their supervisory and enforcement role within the engineering sector, regulators are often considered to be above everything else.
But what the last 12 months have taught us is that
nobody, not even a regulatory body, is immune to the seismic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, having equally been caught by the national Stay at Home order. While the coronavirus pandemic has not deterred
them from their duty, it has had a practical impact on how they regulate and they have had to modify their working methods in light of ongoing restrictions. In order to understand the scale and nature of the
changes in regulatory behaviour which have occurred, as well as anticipate future patterns to ensure best practice going forwards, it is necessary to first contextualise their evolution over the course of the pandemic.
HOW WERE THE REGULATORS REGULATING?
At the start of 2020, regulator activity was something of a mixed bag, in terms of how individual regulators were undertaking their role. For example, the Health and Safety Executive, which (broadly speaking) takes the lead role in investigating those businesses in the engineering and maintenance industries, had become predominantly reactive in nature – responding to and investigating adverse events after they had occurred. Although historically the HSE had previously
undertaken ad hoc and unannounced inspections, these were increasingly rare following decade-long funding cuts, as it simply no longer had the resources or the staff to undertake proactive inspections. The statistics say it all: the number of inspectors employed by the Executive fell from over 1,300 in April 2010 to around 1,000 10 years later. However, the last 12 months has seen a reversal of
this inspection trend. Despite the reduction in the number of ‘active’ workplaces following the first
32 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • MAY 2021
national lockdown, the HSE’s regulatory functions nonetheless continued, and it has had to explore new methods of monitoring. For example, some inspectors, in lieu of physically attending workplaces, are requesting copies of CCTV to enable them to remotely review working practices. Additionally, around half of the additional funding
sourced for the Executive to help it respond to the pandemic has been used to establish a system of telephone inspections, to help it monitor levels of COVID-security. In other words, the HSE has changed its methodology and is behaving differently now compared with the start of 2020, in that it has started to monitor compliance absent of an adverse incident or RIDDOR report.
WHAT LESSONS CAN BUSINESSES TAKE AWAY FROM THIS DEVELOPMENT?
Whereas pre-pandemic it was unlikely that a business would receive a visit or inspection from the HSE in the absence of an adverse event, that no longer holds true. Events of the last year have seen regulators evolve from reactive to proactive organisations, at least in respect of COVID-security issues. Despite the emphasis on COVID-security,
businesses must not forget that their other regulatory and health and safety responsibilities remain. It is certainly not an opportunity for businesses to seek to ‘get away with it’ in respect of their other legal duties. As restrictions are being lifted, it is entirely possible that the regulators will continue with their re- discovered proactivity and extend this operating model to their routine investigations.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS: WHERE ARE THE RISKS FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
In light of the changing emphasis of the regulators, how can businesses future-proof themselves and
ensure that they are achieving best practice across all their operations?
In the first instance, it is recommended that businesses identify the aspects of their operations that are likely to be of interest to the regulators. For example, do your employees undertake lone working? Do they require PPE? Do they regularly work at height? Businesses then need to consider what control measures they already have in place, and whether additional measures are required. Although the initial shortage of PPE in 2020 may have caught a number of organisations off-guard, there is unlikely to be much sympathy from the regulators if the same issues arise in the future and businesses have failed to take protective steps, or failed to learn lessons from recent history. Taking into account the current proactive nature of regulators, businesses should also identify who within their organisation holds the regulatory relationship, and who is likely to be the first point of contact should a regulator make contact. To avoid mixed messages and miscommunications, it is preferable to have an identified individual to undertake all liaison. It may even be worthwhile creating a response protocol, to avoid any confusion when an inspector calls.
THE FUTURE
Now is not the time for complacency and, although COVID has dominated regulatory attention recently, the regulators will be back and they are unlikely to announce their return in advance. Businesses should therefore use the current time to make sure that they address all risks inherent in their business, and where they are on notice of potential short-comings, take steps to remedy these.
PANNONE CORPORATE
pannonecorporate.com
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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