Making Companies Safe - what works? (CCA ... - Unite the Union

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Chapter Eleven Conclusion The Health and Safety Commission has recently stated that it is aiming for a future in which “the regulators are no longer the principal drivers for improvement”. 1 But whilst the HSC may want the HSE to take a back seat, the evidence shows, overwhelmingly, that it is regulation – including the threat of credible enforcement – which is the primary driver motivating organisations to improve their occupational health and safety (OHS) performance in the UK. Moreover, a review of the evidence does not suggest that this is likely to change, since it is highly improbable that the current business environment in which companies operate will change significantly. Attempts to substitute voluntary codes of conduct, knowledge, business benefits, reputational risk, supply chain pressures, and partnerships for HSE inspection and enforcement activity are likely to fail for the following reasons: 1) Voluntarism has not been successful in achieving improvements in human rights, environmental or health and safety management by business. 2) The evidence shows that knowledge and awareness do not necessarily translate into full or even adequate compliance with regulatory requirements. 3) Economic and other business factors do not currently operate as a driver for UK business. 4) Even if business factors became a significant driver, there are inherent dangers in employers pursuing an economic approach to OHS management. 5) The existence of reputational risk is dependent on regulatory activity – specifically on high levels of contact between regulator and regulated, and on high and predictable levels of enforcement action in the event of serious non-compliance. 6) Health and safety management driven by reputational risk or by other business factors (including cost assessments) is likely to lead to skewed action on OHS, which may not correspond to degrees of risk. Therefore regulatory inspection and enforcement is necessary to ensure a consistent approach. 7) However well-intentioned an employer might be, the evidence suggests that competing pressures and priorities frequently draw management attention away from OHS issues. Inspection and enforcement are needed to provide management with a ‘wake-up call’. Thus, far from being able to substitute these levers for traditional regulatory activity, the evidence suggests that inspection and enforcement activity are key to the future success of all of the alternative strategies HSE hopes to develop. For instance, the evidence suggests that supply chain relationships do not currently operate as a pressure for improved health and safety performance, except in highly regulated sectors. Similarly, the PABIAC initiative brought about improvements in health and safety culture and health and safety management across the paper industry, 2 and may have brought about a decrease in the sub-sector’s major injury rates. But this was in the context of intense involvement by the HSE – characterised by increased levels of inspection and enforcement as well as increased levels of advice. This is not to say that there is no need for change. The evidence suggests that there is considerable scope for improving industry’s compliance with occupational health and safety 105
law. For example, a study in the UK by the Eagle Star insurance group revealed that only 30 per cent of the firms surveyed fully complied with health and safety legislation. 3 Also, any consideration of current levels of preventable death, injury and ill health in the UK clearly indicate a need for further action. However, HSE’s approach to securing improvements should be based on what the empirical evidence suggests is most likely to work. And the evidence suggests that, first and foremost, considerable achievements could be secured by significantly increasing current levels of HSE inspection and enforcement. There is also strong evidence to suggest that the imposition of personal liability on key senior decision-makers would greatly increase senior management commitment to, and action on OHS. Finally, there is strong evidence that introducing regulations to extend and strengthen employees’ right to consultation and participation, and the creation of enforcement tools for worker safety representatives, would have a large and measurable impact on rates of occupational injury and ill health. These, therefore, should be the priority areas for HSC/E attention, effort and resources. This also implies that new strategies – such as the development of partnerships – may prove to be valuable complementary interventions, but that they should add to, and not replace, core inspection, investigation and enforcement activity by regulators. In short, if any of these alternative levers are to have a positive effect, they can only do so within the framework of a well-resourced, politically supported and thus credible, deterrence-based enforcement strategy. 1 Health and Safety Commission (2004: 14). 2 Horbury et al. (2002). 3 Discussed in O’Dea and Flin (2003: 8). 106
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Making companies safe: What works?
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Acknowledgments: Courtney Davis wou
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Contents INTRODUCTION 7 MAIN FINDIN
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So for example, the new Strategy do
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“In recent years, there had been
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Chapter eight is a short chapter lo
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• The only sector-specific data o
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PART ONE Legal Regulation v Volunta
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self-regulation through the adoptio
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• A number of studies evaluating
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Gap in the law Yet despite the impo
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By September 2002 the Government ha
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Conclusion In conclusion, the Green
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effectiveness of safety representat
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Chapter Four Conclusion There is ve
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PARTS TWO & THREE Strategies to sec
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A recent HSE discussion paper illus
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Chapter Five The Health and Safety
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Support for these findings comes fr
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Gray and Scholz attempt to understa
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perceived low level of current fine
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Chapter Six The Implications for th
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five times greater than if one had
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Select Committee on Work and Pensio
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Page 59 and 60: health risk management between “a
Page 61 and 62: The relationship between knowledge
Page 63 and 64: Conclusion Whatever factors prompt
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Page 69 and 70: When safety does not pay (or does n
Page 71 and 72: Similarly, firms might make an econ
Page 73 and 74: However, even in the context of mul
Page 75 and 76: does, exert a negative influence on
Page 77 and 78: to cost “a little” or “nothin
Page 79 and 80: For instance, when BP Grangemouth r
Page 82 and 83: Chapter Ten ‘Earned Autonomy’ T
Page 84 and 85: A similar experiment in self-regula
Page 86 and 87: Whilst the original focus of TQM wa
Page 88 and 89: “the more firms incorporate ethic
Page 90 and 91: “In Norway the mandated model is
Page 92 and 93: odies, pressure groups and/or the m
Page 94 and 95: Health and Safety Management System
Page 96 and 97: Gunningham and Johnstone argue that
Page 98 and 99: Conclusion Proposals that some comp
Page 100 and 101: 37 The Norwegian Internal Control R
Page 102 and 103: PART FOUR Conclusion 103
Page 106 and 107: Appendix Select Committee on Work a
Page 108 and 109: References Alder A., Tipping A. and
Page 110 and 111: Health and Well-Being’, in Frick
Page 112 and 113: Honey S., Hillage J. et al. (1997)
Page 114 and 115: Nichols T. and Armstrong P. (1973)
Page 116 and 117: Wokutch R.E. and VanSandt C.V. (200
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