Directors' duties for health and safety
getting the board on board
The TUC’s response to HSC consultative document CD 167 - Health and safety responsibilities of Directors
summary
The TUC welcomes the HSC’s consultative document on the health and safety responsibilities of Directors, because we believe that a crucial element of the Revitalising health and safety strategy is the development of corporate accountability and responsibility for health and safety.
We want to see
- a mandatory code of practice rather than guidance;
- specific versions of the proposed code to cover the voluntary and public sector (especially education and health);
- a named health and safety Director on every Board;
- a standing item about health and safety on Board agendas;
- no scapegoating of the health and safety Director;
- support for a partnership model of health and safety, with the named health and safety Director sitting on a joint union-management safety committee;
- clearer responsibilities for contractors; and
- a system of monitoring and review to assess the effectiveness of the HSC code.
detailed comments
We would prefer to see a code with legal force, because we believe that Directors and those who run public and voluntary organisations should not be able to duck their responsibilities, and because we believe that without a legal requirement, any HSC material will be preaching to the converted - only the committed will take it up. The HSC’s proposed document is in reality only guidance, and we would prefer to see it more honestly described as such.
specific codes for schools and hospital managers
Our main concern is that the code should be clearly understood to apply to everybody who runs an organisation with workers for whom they have health and safety responsibilities. While we believe that health and safety needs a higher profile in the Board rooms of British industry generally, we believe that, all too often, it has no profile at all with the controlling bodies of public sector and voluntary organisations, where the people in charge operate as if they don’t think some sections of health and safety law apply to them.
In particular, we believe that the complex and confusing management system for schools introduced by delegated budgets and so on is in danger of producing a situation where no one feels responsible for health and safety, or that those who do consider themselves responsible do not have the control over resources which needs to go hand in hand with that responsibility.
We recognise the difficulties in drafting a text which will be recognised by all these bodies as referring to them, and we therefore propose that the HSC develop separate versions of the proposed code to cover:
- the public sector generally;
- education and health particularly; and
- voluntary sector organisations.
a named health and safety Director
We would prefer to see more clarity about the roles of the individual Directors, and in particular we strongly support the nomination of one of those Directors to be responsible for health and safety.
We believe that the HSC should also suggest that the health and safety Director take a formal role in any joint union-management safety committee which might be established, and that that Director should report at every meeting to the Board (ie that there should be a standing agenda item).
However, we do not want to open the door to scapegoating of the health and safety Director. It should be clearly understood that responsibility for health and safety failures (acts or omissions) must lie collectively, as well as individually, with the entire Board. We believe that the HSC’s proposals achieve this by not placing any explicit duties on the health and safety Director.
partnership with unions
We particularly welcome the proposed Action Point 4, which stresses the role of unions and safety reps, and which endorses the TUC’s own proposals (developed in part with the CBI) for partnerships over health and safety.
The evidence of a beneficial result from such an approach is overwhelming, and we welcome the clarity of this statement, and its support for going beyond a view of consultation which sees it as a paper exercise.
We believe that this would be strengthened if as proposed above, the named health and safety Director sat on, or chaired, the joint union-management safety committee which safety reps can require under the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations.
contractors
We would wish to see a clearer approach to the Board’s responsibility for contractors. All too often, responsibilities for the core staff of an organisation are taken seriously, but the staff of contractors are considered not so much disposable as someone else’s problem. Directors should be reminded that they cannot delegate or contract out their responsibility for the health and safety of those who are affected by their decisions.
monitoring and review
And finally, the HSC should develop a method of monitoring the take-up and implementation of the proposals set out in their draft text, not least so that the Commission can review in due course whether the code should as the TUC wishes, become mandatory.
Contact: Owen Tudor on 020 7467 1325 or otudor@tuc.org.uk
Trades Union Congress
Congress House
Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3LS
Tel: 020 7636 4030
Fax: 020 7636 0632
Web: www.tuc.org.uk
Briefing document (900 words) issued 12 May 2001
