TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER 1999

MR JOHN HOWARD, MR ROGER BIBBINGS AND MR MIKE TOTTERDELL

  70. Gentlemen, can I welcome you to the second session. Can I ask you to introduce yourselves, for the record, please?
  (Mr Totterdell) Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mike Totterdell and I am a trustee of RoSPA and I chair their Occupational Health and Safety Committee. On my immediate left is Roger Bibbings; he is the Occupational Safety Adviser within RoSPA. And, on my far left, John Howard, who is the Director of Safety Policy in the Society.

  71. Thank you very much. We have had your evidence; do you want to add anything, at this stage, or are you happy to go straight to questions?
  (Mr Totterdell) We are happy to take questions, Chairman.

  72. Do you think the current balance that the HSE strikes between advisory and preventative work and prosecutions and investigations is about right?
  (Mr Totterdell) We feel the HSE have a very delicate balance to keep between what you might term their proactive work and their reactive work; it would be sad if the HSE were seen to be entirely reactive. Their concentration on the proactive tends to be in the production of what is generally considered to be very good, best practice guidance. HSE produce a raft of very good documentation, setting out good practice across a range of activities; but it is the dissemination of that information down to the people who need it where we feel that HSE need the help of some intermediaries, and maybe my colleagues would like to take that up from there.
  (Mr Bibbings) Yes, I certainly think, Chairman, that one of the reasons why the HSE has to devote so much effort to preventive work, and it has to get the balance right between its preventive work and its reactive work, dealing with serious incidents and occurrences, one of the difficulties it has in getting the balance right is because other players in the health and safety system are not actually helping the duty holders, employers, to understand what is required, and too much, in that sense, could be said to be left to HSE. There are many other players in health and safety which we believe should be energised, empowered, helped, by HSE to do more promotional and preventive work, and we have in mind, for example, not only bodies like ourselves but business development agencies, trade associations, TECs, professional bodies, health and safety groups, for example, that are affiliated to RoSPA. There are many other parts of the health and safety system that need to be developed by HSE, helped, through a process of partnership, to promote health and safety and to promote preventive work.

  73. In your evidence, you have quoted what appear to be quite alarming statistics about the reduction in enforcement activity, in recent years, by both HSE and local authorities, and you quote a 44 per cent reduction in enforcement notices in 1996/97, compared with 1994/95. The first thought on that is, are you absolutely certain that that does not relate simply to the fact that places are rapidly becoming safer; or do you think that what appears to be a pretty startling decline is because of this change in balance?
  (Mr Bibbings) I think some of those changes, Chairman, were due to enforcement practice and protocol under the previous administration. For example, there was a requirement for HSE to issue what were called "Minded to" letters before enforcement notices were issued, and that procedure has now been rescinded. So those sorts of things did have an impact on, for a time, the apparent rate at which notices were being issued; but there were probably other considerations as well, and it is very difficult to take all those into account and provide a definitive answer. The figures which we quoted in our evidence are not entirely up to date, and so perhaps we could give you a note on the latest position; but there is a fluctuation here, which is underpinned by a number of factors.

  74. Are there particular criteria though that HSE uses, in terms of how it approaches enforcement, and more particularly in terms of how they judge what sort of activity they should be engaging in, in this field?
  (Mr Bibbings) Our understanding is that HSE have a rating system for companies, they have a database of companies, which is far from complete, I might add, and they employ workplace contact officers to try to create a complete national database of businesses, very difficult to keep track of. But they have a national database in which they try to feed in information on the inherent hazards and the inherent level of risk, the capability to manage, whether the companies have been prosecuted before, the numbers of people affected, and so on, and those criteria, we understand, are used to help rank businesses and determine priorities for visits; that is a closed HSE system, it is not accessible by the public. But HSE's preventive work, which is targeted in that way across sectors and co-ordinated through its national interest groups, has to be balanced against the resources which are required to respond to serious accidents and incidents and prosecutions.

  75. Two thoughts on that. The first one is, is there evidence of a substantial imbalance in different parts of the country between prosecution and investigation activity, do you have evidence that it is greater in some parts of the country than in others?
  (Mr Bibbings) We are not aware of any evidence on those lines. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about differing approaches to enforcement by inspectors, more perhaps in the local authority enforced areas than in the HSE areas, but on investigation it always turns out that the perceived differences are of little significance.

  76. I mentioned earlier the possibility, although I think it is unlikely, that the reduction in enforcement notices is because things are getting better; if HSE is putting a lot of effort into prevention, they could claim that the evidence for the prevention working is that you do not need as many enforcement notices. So it seems to be rather a circular problem, does it not?
  (Mr Bibbings) I think, as I indicated earlier, there are factors affecting the rate at which enforcement notices are given, we understand; and I think the important thing to remember is that HSE seeks compliance with duty by a number of means, first of all, through direct contact and conversation, secondly, for example, through letters. And most enforcement and pressure to create compliance actually takes place through the spoken word and through letters following visits, and only relatively occasionally, in terms of the overall balance of influence, are notices used to secure either prohibition or improvement.

  77. You state that a lot of this does not appear to work that well, as far as smaller firms are concerned, and that closer partnership, you state, is required?
  (Mr Bibbings) Yes, indeed, Chairman. We believe that HSE visit only a very small proportion of small businesses; there are some three million businesses in this country, employing fewer than 50 employees, and, for example, in manufacturing, the rate of fatal and major injury in those firms is at least double the rate in firms employing a thousand or more, so there are definitely serious problems in small firms, although by no means all. In our view, as I said earlier, Chairman, the HSE need to develop much closer partnership and working relationships with intermediaries, in order to reach out to these firms to provide information and advice.

  78. Who might those intermediaries be?
  (Mr Bibbings) In the first instance, we would like to see all bodies that give business advice being thoroughly engaged by HSE as partners, and we have in mind here, for example, not only TECs and Business Links but banks, to which almost all small businesses have to go for funds. These organisations need to be engaged by HSE and made to understand that good health and safety is good business, and that all business plans need to have simple health and safety action plans attached; it need not be very bureaucratic. But we believe that these organisations which are in interface with small businesses, helping them develop and grow, need to understand and be able to give advice, basic advice, and signposting about health and safety matters.

  79. What about local authorities, local authority inspectors?
  (Mr Bibbings) And, indeed, local authorities, I think, would be very important partners in that exercise, as would Government Departments. Government Departments are major procurers and employ a very important role in the funding and procurement chain. And we believe that, just as HSE are saying to large companies and clients, "You must make sure that your contractors are competent and fit, and you must establish and promote effective health and safety management with those kinds of business partners," so it must be for Government Departments, too, to exercise a similar influence.