Health and Safety (H&S) gets a bad press. Stories of innocent activities being outlawed by over-zealous inspectors are rife. It has become commonplace for people to yearn for the days when children were able to play conkers without the need for goggles, ladders could be climbed with impunity, back-garden fireworks displays could be organised without consent forms being completed and church clocks could be wound without need for expensive insurance.
As the ‘goggles for conkers’ story, linked to above, shows the idea that Health and Safety law prohibits a normal game of conkers is a myth. It is true that some over-zealous headteachers may have thought it a good idea to tell children to only play conkers in school if they are wearing goggles, but this is not the same as it being insisted upon by Health and Safety law.
The idea that there is a pre-occupation with ludicrous rules in UK workplace legislation was fought on a regular basis by the Health and Safety Executive in their ‘Myth of the Month’ feature. So why do stories emerge so frequently of new ‘outrages’ involving what has become known as ‘elf and safety’? As we have seen, the UK organisation which works to reduce work-related deaths and serious injury is anxious to dispel myths. So what’s the reason?
Critics of supposed ‘over-regulation’ in Britain often complain that our freedoms are being curtailed by H&S, or that legal requirements are strangling innovation and risk-taking. If the law-makers are not to blame then it must be the fault of the rise of the ‘compensation culture’ and the accompanying increase in ‘no-win no-fee’ legal claims. But as this document indicates, there’s not much evidence to back up this idea.
So when the Prime Minister set up a government review of the operation of H&S laws and the growth of the compensation culture, its findings were eagerly awaited. The report was published in October 2010 and the following recommendations were made:
Compensation Culture – This is summed up as a problem of “perception rather than reality”. UK citizens “perceive Britain to be a far more litigious society than it was 10 or 20 years ago.” The culture is “fuelled by media stories” where people get big payouts for personal injury. It all leads to a climate of fear and blame. The report cites damages claims of close to £300m paid out by the NHS in 2009-10, but these are more likely linked to botched operations and failed care standards in hospitals than conker fights, cheese-rolling and low-flying geese.
Access to Justice – The report says that this 1999 Act is responsible for much of the problem of the ‘elf and safety’ culture in Britain. The major culprits are identified as the growth of claims management companies and new Conditional Fee Agreements and After the Event insurance. If we must point to one group as being responsible for the perceived rise in claims, it is the legal profession and the businesses that refer cases on to them. Attempts at self-regulation of the industry failed so the Claims Management Regulator (CMR) was set up in 2007 to oversee the £300m annual personal injury sector, which spends around £40m per year on advertising. The report seems unable to do much more than write letters to the CMR and the Solicitors Regulation Authority expressing concerns.
So if the problem is largely overblown, consisting of a series of perceptions reinforced by the media, leading to a legal bunfight which is played out daily on our TV screens, was the investigation really worthwhile? In one of its more enlightened observations, the report points out that since the introduction of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, the UK has become one of the safest countries in which to work. Non-fatal accidents are lower than anywhere else in Europe, and we have the regions second-lowest number of fatal accidents at work. H&S is a vital part of protecting people at work and we have much to be proud of in the improvements it has brought about.
Tomorrow, I’ll look into some of the reasons why we need strong H&S regulation and probe a little deeper into why it has attracted such a bad press in recent years.