TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER 1999

MR MALCOLM DAVISON, MR ROGER ALESBURY AND MR REX SYMONS

  1. Good morning, gentlemen. Can I welcome you to the first session of the Inquiry into the Health and Safety Executive. Can I put it on the record that we have published the memoranda that we have received so far, so that, anyone who wants to look at them, it is from the Stationery Office at £11.50, but I think by this afternoon it should be on the House of Commons web page; so, if anyone wants to look up what other people have said, that is the information that is available. Now can I invite you to introduce yourselves, for the record, please?

  (Mr Symons) Good morning, Chairman. My name is Rex Symons. I am the CBI-nominated Commissioner to the Health and Safety Commission and Chairman of the Health and Safety Panel for the CBI. Roger Alesbury, from BP Amoco, is a member of the Health and Safety Panel of the CBI and a member of the Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances. Malcolm Davison, of National Power, is a member of the Health and Safety Panel of the CBI and a member of the Professional Services Committee of IOSH.

  2. We have had your evidence; do you want to add anything this morning to that evidence?
  (Mr Symons) No, Chairman; we are happy to answer questions.

  3. Do you think that HSE regard occupational health as having a high priority?
  (Mr Alesbury) We do believe that the Health and Safety Executive regard occupational health as a high priority, on the basis of their activities and also their publications; and certainly CBI would agree that occupational health should be a high priority. On the basis of the figures that Health and Safety Executive have published, there are indications that occupational health is a bigger issue than occupational accidents, and yet, I think, across all of industry and Health and Safety Executive, perhaps less effort is put into occupational health than is put into occupational safety. So although we agree that they consider it a high priority we would also agree that it could warrant further resources and activity in the future.

  4. Are you satisfied, with the strategy on occupational health, with the targets that HSE have now published?
  (Mr Alesbury) We think that the strategy is broadly a very acceptable strategy, with a lot of very good points, that should help to raise the profile of occupational health. We do have some concern about the numerical targets. Whilst agreeing that the objective and the goal must be to reduce the toll of occupational ill-health, we are concerned at the moment that there is no recognised way, or accepted way, across the whole of industry, for quantifying occupational illness, so the data that are being used as a baseline are subject to a great deal of variability. We would prefer to see some agreement on the basis for measuring occupational health before any targets should be set.

  5. In your own written evidence to this Committee, in paragraph nine, you refer to public concern, and you say that any new regulation should be on, what you call, "sound science" rather than public concern. What role would you give public concern in issues of occupational health and safety?
  (Mr Alesbury) Clearly, public concerns must be taken into account when dealing with any health or safety issue, and our view is that the way to address this in the future is to increase the level of understanding and awareness across all of the stakeholders, including the public, so that when these issues are raised there may be an informed debate as to the balance between risk and appropriate control.

  6. Why do you advocate a one-stop shop approach to health and safety?
  (Mr Symons) The problem at the moment is that there are so many agencies that particularly small firms need to address, and they have to address not only the HSE but the Environment Agency and the local authority, and particularly small firms, the DTI, probably the Fire Services and all the planning authorities, and it is very, very difficult for them, if they are very small, and 3.8 million businesses are small firms, I think; they cannot find a quick way of getting access to the information. We believe that it would be very, very helpful to those firms if they could be sure that they were directed to the appropriate place, in a timely fashion, then they could get the information. This, to us, is a very important part of the strategy of the Commission in developing its access to small firms.
  (Mr Davison) If I can add to that. In a large company, if you have got a problem, you probably have experts who know which agency to turn to and where to get the advice from. In a small company, say they had a simple problem, like dealing with a flammable liquid, then they may have environmental concerns, health and safety concerns, fire concerns, and so it would be in their interest, to their assistance, if they could turn to one place where they got at least a tranche of information about what was required of them and then, if necessary, they could be directed to the agencies for more detailed information.

  7. But which regulatory regimes should be included in the one-stop shop?
  (Mr Davison) A small firm may also actually have some concern about approaching the regulator, initially, and it seemed to me there was an article on the Small Business Services, that I picked up, out of the paper, and that kind of contact might be more appropriate to contact initially, for the small company, and then they can be directed to the particular agency, if they require to go into detailed advice.

  8. Yes, but the one-stop shop would have to be fairly inclusive in its remit and it would have to know about particular regulations; so who should be included, and should any regime not be included, in that initial approach?
  (Mr Davison) I think, from the small firms' point of view, that all regulatory agencies should have some input into the one-stop shop, so you can get initial advice.

  9. Who should pay for that advice?
  (Mr Symons) If the advice is to be regularly used by small firms, it has, in the first instance, I think, to be available free. If it comes with a fee, I think large numbers of these people will ignore it, in the first instances. I think the agencies that need to be involved are certainly the Health and Safety Executive, the Environment Agency, local authorities and the DTI, and it is a matter of providing access to those agencies, rather than giving specific information in its own right, I think.

  10. Would there be a difficulty in getting someone in the one-stop shop to visit the firm, to know the firm in question, to resolve these issues in a timely way?
  (Mr Symons) Yes, of course there would be a difficulty, but I think the Business Links, to some extent, try to provide that service now, with business counsellors. We do not believe that this can replace the agencies; it can make access to the agencies easier.

  11. In fact, I think you have almost covered it there, this idea of the one-stop shop that really could give initial advice and then point the small firm in the direction of the right agency to deal with that particular problem. You are not suggesting that all the agencies' work should be contained within a one-stop shop, it is really an initial place to go to?
  (Mr Symons) Yes; absolutely.
  (Mr Davison) If I could comment on the one-stop shop, one tends to think in terms of a physical location, with people in it; you could also do it through some of the electronic devices currently available, the Internet itself would be a good vehicle for putting information to—

  12. A lot of small businesses are not on the Internet, are they? Has the idea of a one-stop shop been discussed at the Commission?
  (Mr Symons) Not in this form, no, it has not. The Commission discusses continuously various ways of accessing small firms and has developed a variety of programmes, including the Small Firms' Breakfasts; but the concept of linking several agencies together by some kind of information service has not been discussed yet.

  13. What do you think then about the existing tripartite approach to health and safety, within the Commission?
  (Mr Symons) The tripartite approach, and the social partnership, has worked extremely well. I think it is a success story.

  14. Could I move on now to cover environmental issues, with regard to workplace safety; do you think the HSE does well there?
  (Mr Alesbury) In relation to environmental issues, yes. I think they do particularly well in the areas which are most clearly under their wing, for example, product regulation, where they cover health, safety and environment. I think, what we would always encourage is to increase the co-operation between the various agencies that are responsible for health, safety and environment; although we would not feel that health and safety should be subsumed under the Environment Agency, because that might detract from the attention to health and safety.

  15. Do you agree with a number of people who have submitted memoranda, in their thoughts that there is a lack of integration between environmental protection and health?
  (Mr Alesbury) I think that, from my perception, there is certainly scope for improved co-operation and improved integration in those particular areas.

  16. Would you say that it is pretty bad; would you say there is scope for improvement?
  (Mr Alesbury) I would not say it is pretty bad, I would say that there are certainly areas where you could see that there are opportunities to improve performance and to improve use of the resources that exist across the agencies. The Health and Safety Executive undoubtedly have expertise that might be brought to bear, for example, on environmental issues, particularly on the health side.

  17. Do you think there is a lack of understanding between the two regulatory bodies, that does not help?
  (Mr Alesbury) I think that there may be a lack of understanding, although far be it from me to comment on it in detail. I think there was certainly a benefit from encouraging them to work more closely together on areas where each of them share expertise.
  (Mr Davison) I think it is interesting, in terms of defining what one means by `environment'. Within the workplace, there is a local environment that employees are exposed to, and I think the Health and Safety Executive do a very good job with helping employers ensure that that environment is a healthy environment for them. The routine activities on a facility may produce waste streams which are then going to the greater environment, and that is where the Environment Agency comes into play; but it may have an effect not only on flora and fauna but on people as well, and perhaps there is room for greater co-operation between the agencies on those things that will have a health effect on people in the wider environment.

  18. Do you not think this significantly impinges on the idea, of a one-stop shop and its potential success, if there is, indeed, a lack of clarity in who does what, and to what best effect, between the regulatory bodies already?
  (Mr Davison) I certainly feel that the regulatory bodies ought to—the first step is to talk to each other about what they see as their remits, what the areas are that they are covering, so they can agree between them on who is best placed to deal with that chain of events I have just described, from within the workplace to without the workplace.

  19. So all of those agencies need to get their act together before we could really consider a success for the one-stop shop approach?
  (Mr Alesbury) It could possibly be an outcome of promoting a one-stop shop, to actually encourage some working together to deliver simple forms of advice, particularly to small- and medium-size enterprises.