Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
TUESDAY 23 NOVEMBER 1999
MR BILL
CALLAGHAN, MS
JENNY BACON
AND MR
DAVID EVES
320. You have told us you are going to go for
more of these, and then you are saying "but". It has
all been, "On the one hand", and, "On the other
hand". Surely we want convincing that you are actually doing
something?
(Ms Bacon) We are aiming to increase the number of
improvement notices and prohibition notices served. We shall do
so when we have decent legal grounds for doing so. We are not
going to put ourselves beyond the law by doing so.
321. How many were served last year?
(Ms Bacon) Last year it was 10,800.
322. You would expect to serve how many next
year?
(Ms Bacon) I would expect to see a year-on-year increase
of something in the order of a thousand; but it may be more or
it may be less, depending on the cases that come to our attention.
They are extremely useful as a mechanism for improving health
and safety, getting employers to comply with their duties, manage
health and safety properly, and to spend money on health and safety
rather than going to court. That is one of the reasons why we
prefer them to prosecutions in some circumstances.
Mr Cummings
323. You have been quite definite in relation
to the range and strength of penalties. Have you made these feelings
known in no uncertain terms to your political masters?
(Ms Bacon) The Commission has done just that.
324. What has been the response?
(Ms Bacon) The response has been that ministers also
want legislation to achieve these events to take place. I believe
that there may even be a hand-out Bill hanging around for this
purpose.
325. You are quite heartened with the response
from DETR?
(Ms Bacon) I think we have had a very good response
from ministers and DETR and have worked well with them.
326. What effect would a successful occupational
health strategy have on workplace health and safety?
(Ms Bacon) I think it would greatly increase awareness
of the things that can cause ill health in the workplace and,
therefore, action on things that can cause ill health. I think,
even more than that, it would increase awareness of things that
people may come to work with and which will be made worse by work;
so that employers take that into account in their risk assessment
and make sure the job is, to some extent, tailored to the individual.
I think a successful strategy would also see the workplace as
somewhere where more general messages about public health can
be conveyed usefully. A successful occupational health strategy
will also lead to an increase in the number of occupational health
practitioners available to advise primary care groups, which I
see as being important. More generally, I hope it would also help
to underpin better rehabilitation of people who had been made
ill by work, or been injured at work, and we would like to see
get back into the labour force.
(Mr Callaghan) Could I just add two points there.
I would certainly, from the Commission's point of view, want to
see a successful strategy achieving fewer people off sick; and
also (and this is a message to industry) a more profitable and
successful business sector. A key message of the Commission is
that good health is good business. That is a theme I want to underline
and emphasise.
327. Would you prefer to see a locally based
strategy or a regionally based strategy, as has been suggested
by several witnesses?
(Ms Bacon) I think we need both. We need to use all
the instruments available. Certainly locally based strategy focusing
on primary care groups as being sources of occupational health
advice we do see as being extremely important. Of course, "locally
based" also means working with local authorities, local health
authorities and the NHS locally. Regionally based, certainly we
will be wanting to work with regional authorities in their strategic
planning on use of resource; because, clearly, occupational health
more than most aspects of health and safety is an area for partnership
with others who are working in the public health sector.
328. Do you see yourselves discussing these
matters in any detail with the newly established primary care
groups?
(Ms Bacon) Yes, we do.
329. Are you doing any work in that direction
at the present time?
(Ms Bacon) We have started work with people at the
local level, but we have also put advice to ministers and discussed
this with the Department of Health as to the way in which jointly
we can make this effective at local and national levels.
Mr Brake
330. What outputs do you measure to check your
strategy to improve the penetration of health and safety advice/information
to small firms is actually working?
(Ms Bacon) One of them is just sheer awareness. We
do that by survey. There has been a survey. We have been conducting
a "good health is good business" campaign now for four
years, and one of the things we do is to evaluate that. We have
found increased levels of awareness of health and safety issues
and the law have gone from something like 20 per cent. to 55 per
cent. It is still not good enough by any means but it is a start.
More generally, what we look at is performance in terms of what
inspectors are finding. We evaluate specific sets of regulations
like, for example, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations,
and we do that by going round to a sample of firms and looking
at where they were, say, three years ago and where they are now.
That has to be on a highly sampled basis, but we do do an evaluation
of the impact of individual regulations in that way with particular
emphasis on small firms. Something like the construction, design
and management regulation, the evaluation there concentrated heavily
on small firms for obvious reasons. We monitor and take account
of what is happening on the pattern of injuries and ill health
generally, which gives a picture nationwide.
331. Given that you have very limited resources,
do you think there is a greater role for both local authorities
and also other organisations such as chambers of commerce? Is
there a role for them in health and safety terms?
(Ms Bacon) Yes. That is increasingly something we
are trying to do. The Commission's strategic plan this year has
focused very much on partnership, working with and through other
intermediary organisations. We simply cannot do all the things
that need to be done. We simply cannot reach the 3.7 million firms
in the economy without the help of intermediary organisations
and, in particular, local authorities. I think local authorities
have got a major role both as enforcers of health and safety legislation,
which they have responsibility for, and as conveyors of information,
given that they are in the locality.
332. What financial incentives, if any, do you
think should be given to businesses to promote health and safety?
(Ms Bacon) I think that the whole question of financial
incentives is one of the things being looked at in the Government's
strategic appraisal. Tax breaks on, for example, using protective
equipment or making sure machinery is safe would be one worth
looking at. Tax breaks on training and ensuring competence is
certainly something we would be deeply in favour of. More generally,
quite apart from financial incentives from government, the role
of insurance, setting insurance premia to reflect risk and risk
management in a company seems to us to be a very strong lever
that probably our system is not making enough use of at the moment.
Mr Donohoe
333. Could I just ask you if you monitor the
number of times an inspector goes into a plant without, first
of all, making an appointment with the management?
(Ms Bacon) Without?
334. Without making an appointment with the
management?
(Ms Bacon) We do not monitor centrally the number
of unannounced calls that are made. We would expect a balance.
Certainly we would expect—
Chairman
335. What is that balance?
(Ms Bacon) It will depend on what we know about the
company. If the company has got a bad record we would want to
walk in unannounced.
Mr Donohoe
336. My experience is that it is very, very
likely that management knows that the Health and Safety Inspector
is coming. That is the experience I have had as a trade union
official over 20 years.
(Ms Bacon) I do not think that is the general experience
because certainly inspectors I have talked to say that something
like two-thirds of the visits they make are unannounced. There
is always a balance to be struck. If we want to make sure that
the inspector is seeing the right people, including safety representatives,
the chances are they have got to pre-warn to make sure that the
people are there.
337. So that is the problem why they have to
pre-warn. Surely it is not the person they need to see, it is
the problem they need to see, and in these circumstances it is
not necessary at the end of the day to give this notification.
That was my experience on almost every occasion when there was
a problem.
(Ms Bacon) David, you have done it.
(Mr Eves) There is a range of warning, if you like.
I would not say "warning". It is very unusual in my
experience for an inspector to want to give a firm a pre-warning.
If he needs a senior engineer to be present or if he wants to
pin the managing director down he will actually ask to see that
individual and make sure they are there, otherwise it is a complete
waste of time. We are all very busy. I am sure if most people
just turned up on our doorsteps we might be too busy to see them
that day. That is not necessarily the message we want to give
but we try to be efficient. I have been inspecting several times
this year with inspectors and the majority of those were cold
calling inspections where we were doing precisely what you are
looking for. We were looking at the activities, the conditions,
and the inspector would serve a notice there and then if things
were bad. On the other hand, I think it is very appropriate for
that inspector, if he is going back with a warning to the managing
director that he is going to consider legal proceedings and he
wants a reaction from him, "how seriously do you take this
situation I have discovered", that he should be making an
appointment to pin that person down.
338. You say that over the years of experience
you have seen quite a dramatic transformation. It used to be that
when the Health and Safety were sending an inspector, the foreman
went around with the goggles and the hard hats but that has gone,
has it, you do not see that any longer? The guards are put on
the lathes, everything is made into some kind of order. That was
what my experience was during the periods I was doing anything
like that. Do you say that has now transformed and if I went into
a plant, as I did on Friday, I would not see that sort of thing
again?
(Mr Eves) No, I could not guarantee that. Things have
changed. On the construction sites you will see hard hats being
worn. It was in the comparatively recent past that there was no
requirement for that and the culture was quite anti the wearing
of protective equipment on construction sites, it was a macho
thing and you were a softie if you wore a hard hat. I think there
has been a dramatic change in the culture on construction sites
which might have quite a lot to do with the steady improvement,
certainly in terms of fatal accident trends, in the construction
industry. Coming back to your earlier question, I have often been
to a very large plant unannounced and I would be pretty disappointed
if by the time I got through the front gate the telephones were
not ringing and people were not being told that the inspector
was on site. They cannot clean up a large plant in a few minutes,
I can choose to go wherever I please and see whoever I please.
It would be disappointing if an inspector's arrival did not create
some sort of stir.
339. In terms of change, do you think that given
that the HSC has been in existence for over 25 years that it is
time for the composition of the Board to change?
(Mr Callaghan) That is obviously for ministers, it
is determined by Parliament. I think the Commission has to reflect,
and indeed I think anticipate, some of the changes we are seeing
in the world of work. We have myself and nine fellow Commissioners.
I am determined that we do, as it were, reflect the interests
of various types of businesses, large and small, and those who
work for them as well as those who bring an independent judgment.
As I have said, this is a very fast moving world and none of us
20 years ago would have predicted that some of the largest factories
now would be call centres or large retail supermarkets. Where
you do find concentrations of people in one spot I think the Commission
has to be aware of some of these changes. I think the tripartite
principle has served the nation well. However, we must do better
and I am certainly looking for—
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