Uncovered: the government’s health and safety strategy

Is this more red tape?

Not in the strict regulatory sense, although it promises to generate plenty of paper. The government’s new plans – which are enticingly named the Strategy for Workplace Health and Safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond – have three stated aims: to improve future standards; set out a new direction for the health and safety system; and clarify the role of the organisations that manage it. Rather than regulate, the government is looking to encourage employers to understand the potential business advantages of good health and safety. Crucial for success, the strategy document argues, will be the ability of employers to engage employees in raising health and safety standards in the workplace.

What’s the point?

While serious and fatal accidents in UK workplace have fallen by over two-thirds since 1974, both workers and employers continue to suffer the impacts of ill health and injury at work. In 2001-2, the UK lost 40 million worker days to sickness or injury, of which 33 million days were attributable to ill health.

What’s the cost to business?

The Health and Safety Executive would rather turn the question round and point to the cost that businesses incur from not having a successful health and safety strategy. Hence the old ‘business case’ argument CSR practitioners will be familiar with.

To prove it’s now with the times, the Health & Safety Commission has published a series of best practice case studies. Top performers are judged to include:

• Rolls-Royce, which saved £11m by reducing sickness absence through a new policy that clarified management responsibilities and set out an early rehabilitation action plan for any worker absent for more than four weeks
• MFI, which reduced the hours lost through manual handling injuries at its Leeds warehouse from 521 to zero following employee safety training
• AstraZeneca, which experienced 31% lower absence levels and a 53% reduction in ergonomic-related illnesses as a result of its Well-being in AstraZeneca programme. The free employee service provides access to expert independent counsellors with the aim of helping staff to manage life issues at home or at work

How does HSE intend to measure performance improvements?

You’ve guessed it – another index. Await the survey in the post. The HSE is proposing to sponsor the development of a Corporate health and safety performance index.

The aim? To assist external stakeholders in assessing an organisation’s management of risks and responsibilities towards workers and the public.

Sound familiar? The HSE says the index is being developed in response to increasing expectations that employers take responsibility for health and safety seriously as a component of wider social responsibility. The government agency hopes that the index will also engage investors and other stakeholders, thereby serving to “influence and persuade businesses to improve their H&S performance”.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/hsc/strategy.htm

Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue no: 75 – May, 2004

Michelle Dow is a consultant with The Corporate Citizenship Company. She joined the company full-time in November 2003.