RoSPA Press Office : Press Release
December 1, 2003
TRUST THE GOOD, BUT HIT THE BAD SAFETY PERFORMERS
RoSPA is urging the Health and Safety Executive to get tough on businesses with poor health and safety records, while leaving high performers to get on with the job without intervention.
The Society believes this will strengthen the HSE’s hand and lead to safer workplaces for thousands of employees.
RoSPA’s radical proposals are contained in its response to the Health and Safety Commission’s consultation on its strategy for 2010 and beyond.
Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “It would be a mistake if poor performers thought that HSC/E had gone soft on enforcement.
“We want to see a system under which higher performing companies, which also make use of independent external audit, could be put on trust to manage their own health and safety risks without HSE intervention. This would free up more inspector resources to deal with persistently poor employers.
“RoSPA has suggested a new system of remedial sentencing to compel persistent offenders to undergo retraining and to implement health and safety management improvement plans under the supervision of external experts. This approach would be underpinned by use of suspended fines, which would have to be paid if businesses did not come up to scratch.”
He added: “HSE needs to become the development agency for the whole health and safety system. It must develop formal partnership agreements between key players and HSE in which each agrees what they can deliver to help meet shared priorities and objectives.
“RoSPA also wants to see an expansion in the make-up of the Commission and the setting up of new strategic groups on issues such as corporate health and safety management and workforce involvement.”
RoSPA‘s submission makes many other suggestions, including the need for a co-ordinated national health and safety services strategy. It also calls on the HSC/E to make work-related road safety a top priority in the new strategy, given that twice as many people are killed while driving in the course of their work as in all notifiable accidents put together.
Copies of the submission can be obtained from the “What’s New” section of occupational safety at www.rospa.com
