APPENDIX THREE
RESEARCH INTO BUSINESS UNDERSTANDING/PERCEPTIONS
HEALTH AND
SAFETY RESEARCH
In response to concerns over irrational and
"nannying" approach to health and safety, HSE started
a research and consultation exercise in 2005 to better understand
the issue. The exercise included a "sensible risk debate"
which included a range of events and an open web forum, discussions
with a range of stakeholder organisations, a contracted piece
of research into the scope and causes of apparently disproportionate
health and safety decisions. They also drew upon existing research
reports and the results of their annual MORI survey of attitudes
to health and safety amongst workers, managers, chief executives
and citizens.
Drawing together the results of these strands of
research led the HSE to the following broad conclusions:
— Myths and understanding—the
majority of popular stories about health and safety "requirements"
are based on a misunderstanding of true legal requirements, either
having no basis in fact or, more often stemming from the over-interpretation
of legal requirements by an individual.
— Excessive paperwork—many expressed
concern about health and safety becoming seen about paperwork
and box ticking.
— Perceptions of a compensation culture—there
was a fairly widely held belief in the existence of a "compensation
culture".
More recently (2007), the BRE, with support
from the HSE, launched a review of health and safety for low risk
places of work, focusing in particular on smaller businesses.
The aim was to find way to reduce unnecessary burden on these
businesses whilst reducing injury and ill health. As part of the
research, they commissioned Vanilla Research to better understand
the perceptions of the health and safety regime amongst SME's.
The relevant findings from the both the main
review and the commissioned perceptions work cover:
— Confusion around the scope of health
and safety—many firms use the term "health and
safety" to cover a wide range of regulations for which HSE
is not responsible.
— Growth in the influences on workplace
health and safety—there is now a complex network of
sources of health and safety support to which businesses can turn.
These are often outside the control of HSE or local authorities.
— Media influence—the tone
of much of media coverage of health and safety is negative, especially
in national press.
— Confidence in grasp of legal requirements—the
perceptions study indicated that few businesses felt completely
confident in their understanding of what was legally required
of them.
EMPLOYMENT LAW
RESEARCH
In June 2008 Employment Law Guidance team within
BERR commissioned ORC International, an independent research agency,
to conduct a piece of research into the departments progress against
its objective to reduce the administrative burden on business
associated with meeting key employment law obligations. While
the first section of this report focused solely on progress against
the PWC baseline, the second section considered business behaviour
and the business process of meeting regulatory requirements.
The latter half of this report therefore gave the
employment law guidance team some interesting feedback from business
on their perceptions of regulatory requirements:
— Clarity over requirements—businesses
perceive employment law as changing and open to interpretation.
— Knowledge—respondents lack
confidence in their knowledge of the legal requirements associated
with specific information obligations.
ANDERSON REVIEW
RESEARCH
The independent Anderson Review was established
to examine how the Government could provide more certainty to
businesses using its guidance. The review conducted focus groups
with 90 small and medium enterprises and commissioned research
by Ipsos MORI in which 759 SMEs from England and Wales were interviewed
to establish their views on the challenges presented by regulation
and how well equipped they feel to comply.
The majority of SMEs surveyed saw complying with
regulation as an important responsibility, with Health and Safety
and Employment Law being the most time consuming and costly areas.
They reported being better equipped to deal with Health and Safety
than with Employment Law although a significant proportion did
not seek guidance on compliance, an approach much more likely
for the smallest organisations.
CROSS-CUTTING
RESEARCH AND
DISSEMINATION OF
KNOWLEDGE BY
THE BETTER
REGULATION EXECUTIVE
The Better Regulation Executive has been active
in seeking to understand perceptions of regulation and what influences
them, and has taken steps to share knowledge about this across
Government. In addition to the Health and Safety and Anderson
Review research (above), the BRE:
— undertakes an extensive programme of
visits and meetings with business representatives which provides
evidence about attitudes;
— has commissioned qualitative research into
businesses and citizens general attitudes to regulation in 2005
from IpsosMori. This involved 20 focus groups. It found that businesses
believed Government should treat information and advice provision
as a priority, and identified some signs of over-compliance partly
linked to lack of awareness especially around health and safety
electrical testing rules; and
— in March 2009, the BRE commissioned the
independent research agency FreshMinds to conduct research into
the attitudes of business people and the public to regulation
and its benefits. This involved qualitative interviews with 25
business people and 25 members of the public, the purpose of which
was to allow researchers to get beyond people's initial feelings
about regulations to gain a deeper understanding of how regulation
impacts on and is perceived by people, in particular the benefits
it delivers. The initial findings of the research were presented
to a stakeholder event including business representatives in May
2009, and a final report is due in the summer of 2009.
The Better Regulation Executive has also undertaken
work internally to gather and synthesise the wider available research
about business perceptions of regulation, and to fully understand
the NAO survey. The BRE has shared key products across Government
via the Better Regulation Units network. Findings on perceptions
have also been discussed at a Heads of Regulators meeting, in
one-to-one discussions with interested officials, and at an OECD
workshop on Indicators of Regulatory Management Systems in April
2009.
| 
