Summary of Lord Young's Report
By Ian Irwin
It would appear from the summary conclusions that the report will do nothing to change first aid either at work or in general. However some members may be involved in other aspects of Health and Safety and these could change.
The first point is that the report is trying to simplify the overall position for small enterprises and for voluntary activities. Lord Young is concerned about the compensation culture and advises restrictions on the volume and type of “no win no fee” advertising. He is also advising that the situation of what is generally known as “good Samaritan” actions should be clarified and if necessary legislation should be introduced to make it clear that well intentioned voluntary acts will not lead to any liability.
One of the main recommendations is to simplify the risk assessment procedure for small firms and if need be to challenge the EU before they make it more restrictive. He is calling for the HSE to produce periodic checklists for low hazard workplaces which will make for simpler interactive risk assessments and will also enable them to monitor compliance.
One more important point is a call for health and safety consultants to be registered and accredited to a professional body and only such professionals to be used when an insurance company calls for a professional risk assessment to be made.
He is also calling for a common sense approach to school activities and a move from risk assessment to risk – benefit assessment. His aim is to enable schools to return to low hazard activities and school trips without the current legislative burden and risk to those in charge. In this connection where a local authority bans an activity on health and safety grounds they must state in writing what those rounds are, and if on appeal it is held they acted unreasonably they would be liable for any loss incurred.
HSE are asked to bring the current “raft” of regulations into a single consolidated set. RIDDOR should be checked to see if it is working and the period for reporting under RIDDOR extended to 7 days.
Food safety and health and safety inspections should be combined and any rating given should be made public. Inspections should also be made open to accredited certification bodies to ease the burden on local authority.
Finally members of the police and fire service when engaged in the course of their duties should not be subject to health and safety inspections or prosecutions if they have put themselves at risk.
This summary is precisely that and anyone who wishes to know more about the recommendations is advised to read the full report. It should also be noted that all the above are recommendations and have not yet been enacted or even accepted by Parliament though they are a clear indication of the way thinking is going.
The full report is available online as a pdf document.