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success in attracting interest and uptake, such as mentoring for micro-
businesses. However, there is a problem of reaching those SMEs who need
services the most (Bradshaw, Curran, Eskin, & Fishwick, 2001). Companies
that tend to take up services already have more advanced health and safety
arrangements in place (Technopolis, 2004). Schemes therefore may not be
effective in delivering on targets to Revitalise Health and Safety (DETR/HSE,
1999) if enterprises with poor health and safety standards are not both
targeted and recruited
Despite economic factors being intuitively associated with the lack of
engagement and uptake of health & safety activity, studies (Griffin et al.,
2005; McKinney, 2002) indicate that constraints may be more perceptual than
economic. The perception that moves to improve heath and safety may not
produce any improvement or benefit in real terms, may be more of an
influence in undermining the motivation of SMEs to increase health and
safety involvement. In turn, this perception may be sustained by the lack of
evidence that initiatives are producing real, rather than supposed benefits.
There is therefore, a need to demonstrate that initiatives are producing actual
benefits in terms of health, safety and economy (Griffin et al., 2005). In order
to achieve this, assessment of the effectiveness of interventions needs to be
improved. However, this is not without its problems, given the reluctance of
SMEs to take part in surveys needed to provide evidence of effectiveness.
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