Examination of Witnesses (Questions 105
- 119)
MR JOHN
MONKS AND
MR OWEN
TUDOR
TUESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 1999
Chairman
105. Good morning, gentlemen, welcome to the
second session of our inquiry into the work of the Health and
Safety Executive. Could you please identify yourselves for the
record?
(Mr Monks) John Monks, General Secretary
of the Trades Union Congress. Owen Tudor, also from the TUC. Owen
is senior policy officer and a member of the Health and Safety
Commission.
106. Do you want to say any opening remarks
or are you happy for us to go straight to questions?
(Mr Monks) Just to say, Chairman, that although we
are never satisfied at all with this country's record on health
and safety, we do note that on many comparative measures Britain
does rather well compared to a number of other advanced industrial
economies. We do note that this is perhaps the area of the labour
market, which is the most regulated and where there is tripartite
machinery operating, and it seems to us to be to the credit of
the Health and Safety Commission that despite some terrible problems
from time to time and some problems which affect many thousands
of people the overall record in comparative terms is a good one,
and we hope that is recognised in the Committee's work.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr Olner
107. Following on from that, in the field of
occupational health we have not got a very good record, have we,
compared to the machinery that is in place in the United States,
Italy and other countries?
(Mr Monks) You are absolutely right. I think the record
is better on safety than it is on health, and the next move forward
seems to us to be in the occupational health area and on areas
of white collar problems in particular. Most progress has been
made in relation to the traditional industries and dangerous processes
and substances and so on, so I agree with you.
108. Indeed your submission argues for additional
funds for the establishment of an occupational health service.
Can you elaborate on those proposals?
(Mr Monks) Yes. We do think that a weakness in the
provision of health services at the moment in this country is
the absence of any local focus on occupational health and, as
you have seen from our written submission, we are arguing that
it should be a specific responsibility of the various health authorities
there should be an occupational health service included as part
of the local health services. We have discussed this issue with
the Department of Health over recent years and we know there is
some sympathy with it.
109. But is that not splintering the process?
Are HSE going to be the competent authority which is going to
deal with occupational health, or are we going to splinter it
down to local health authorities and trusts?
(Mr Tudor) I think it is vitally important to recognise
the HSE's role in prevention and ensuring occupational illness
is prevented in the work place, because that is the only place
where you can do the prevention. What we are interested to see
is for those people who have suffered an occupational illness
that when they go to their health service, because that is where
they go—regardless of what we want them to do they will
go to their local GP—they are going to someone who is able
to recognise their condition, to give them appropriate treatment
and rehabilitation, to refer them on to the right people and,
where necessary and if at all possible, to refer their problems
back to the Health and Safety Executive to make sure the prevention
goes on in the work place which stops other people from suffering
those conditions. I sympathise with the position that you should
not be splintering responsibilities and we are not proposing to
splinter responsibilities for prevention, those lie with the HSE
as the enforcer and local authorities as enforcers and the employer
is the provider, the person who provides prevention.
110. Do you think the HSE inspectors are competent
to deal with occupational health issues?
(Mr Tudor) They are less competent to deal with occupational
health issues than they are with occupational safety issues, because
that has been their traditional background. There are, however,
a number of HSE inspectors who are extremely competent in health.
What I am more concerned about, and our submission suggested the
concern, is their ability to deal with conditions known in the
rubric as psycho-social conditions, things like stress, which
are in some cases outside their general competences. The HSE is
now recruiting people with a psycho-social background into the
Inspectorate who we hope will be able to transfer their knowledge
about those sorts of issues to their colleagues and we think there
ought to be more training in those areas for them.
Chairman
111. Are you telling us that HSE inspectors
do not suffer from stress themselves?
(Mr Tudor) Suffering from it and knowing how to advise
employers about preventing it are, I am afraid, two different
things!
Mr Olner
112. Talking about divisions of responsibility,
at the moment the HSE and local authorities have some dual responsibilities
in respect of health and safety, do you think that is appropriate?
(Mr Monks) Yes, I think broadly we would leave it
as it is, where essentially the Health and Safety Executive are
dealing with manufacturing and other processes and the private
service sector in particular has been dealt with by the local
authorities who, after all, are doing inspections for other purposes
as well—food inspections or whatever. But we do worry sometimes
about the variable quality of some local authority inspections
and some take it more seriously than others.
113. Have you got a league table of those authorities
which take it responsibly and those which do not?
(Mr Monks) I have not, no.
(Mr Tudor) The evidence, I am afraid, is anecdotal,
it is from what the unions tell us about what they find about
a local authority. I think it would be very difficult to devise
a league table in that regard because it does depend so much on
the level of resources which are being put into a local authority
and the skills of those local authority inspectors.
114. Is that not a measure of responsibility,
how many resources they put into it? You would be able to quantify
that for each local authority.
(Mr Monks) I was just going to say I think it is rather
a good idea for somebody to draw up a league table and it is something
you might encourage others to do.
Mrs Dunwoody
115. But you have raised the matter with the
Local Government Association?
(Mr Tudor) We have regular meetings with the bit of
the Local Government Association which deals with environmental
health, which is HELA, the joint HSE Local Authority Committee.
116. And you have pointed out to them the difference
in enforcement between one authority and another and have asked
them what they are going to do about it?
(Mr Tudor) We have not raised that specifically with
them because HSE themselves have raised that with them through
the Local Authority Unit.
117. What was the response?
(Mr Tudor) The response is that they are taking steps
to improve consistency of enforcement.
118. What sort of steps?
(Mr Tudor) One of the particular steps they are taking
is a thing which trade unions have been very much in favour of,
which is the Lead Authority Partnership Scheme. For instance,
if you are talking about a large retailer with many sites around
the country what will happen is that one local authority will
take the lead on looking at their management systems, looking
at their health and safety systems nationally, and then other
local authorities should feed into that.
119. With respect, Mr Tudor, that is not quite
the question, is it? If you are talking action against a large
chain of shops or a large chain of employers, that is one thing,
but you are saying something different, you are saying there is
a gap, presumably in the skill levels and enforcement levels of
different local authorities. That is not the same thing, is it,
with respect?
(Mr Tudor) The HSE's Local Authority Unit is taking
steps to ensure that the training which is given is done in the
same way in the different local authorities and that it is brought
together. I think there are regional centres, for instance, where
local authority inspectors are trained. It is true to say that
one of the advantages of local authority inspection is indeed
that they reflect what the local authorities want them to do.
If they were all doing exactly the same thing, there would not
be that much case for saying they should let it rest with the
local authorities.
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