THE TRUTH BEHIND THE HEADLINES
A TUC REPORT
October 2006
Health and safety often gets a bad press. We read about safety inspectors banning ladders or games of conkers and firms being put out of business because of health and safety regulations. Reading some of these stories you might be forgiven for wondering how anything actually gets done given the raft of rules and regulations that seem to govern health and safety.
This short report looks at the truth behind some of these stories.
Health and safety is regulated through the Health and Safety at Work Act, a short and simple piece of legislation dating from 1974, which states that employers have a duty to secure the health, safety and welfare of people at work and also to protect the public from risks arising out of work activity.
The Act also allows the government to make regulations to help achieve this. Some of these regulations are general and cover all workplaces, such as the need for a risk assessment, others are specific to a sector, such as construction or the chemical industry. The Health and Safety at Work Act, and regulations made under it, are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities.
The TUC, which has for over 100 years been a champion of strong and practical health and safety regulation has looked at some of the stories and tried to track down the truth behind them. It found that some are just not true, and many others are misrepresentations of the truth.
This does not mean that every health and safety story we read about is made up. In some cases regulations have been wrongly interpreted. However that is different from saying that health and safety regulations, or their enforcement have been wrong. In none of the stories we looked at did we find that was the case. In other examples employers have used health and safety as an excuse for not doing something which they did not want to do anyway, or as an excuse for saving money. There were also cases where the standard requirements of an insurance policy are unsuitable for an event, and rather than have dialogue between the organiser and insurer, the organiser has gone straight to the local press.
All these stories have appeared in the press in the past couple of years.
Myth 1 Truth |
Myth 2 Truth |
Myth 3 Truth |
Myth 4 Truth |
Myth 5 Truth |
Myth 6 Truth |
Myth 7 Truth |
Myth 8 Truth |
Myth 9 Truth |
Myth 10 Truth These are stories where a story is based on an actual event but the actual circumstances are completely different from what was reported. |
Local councils have banned hanging baskets on health and safety grounds.
This probably relates to Bury St Edmunds where the borough did briefly remove hanging baskets because of concerns that some lampposts were unstable. As soon as they had checked the lampposts the hanging baskets were replaced. There are still hanging baskets in Bury St Edmunds.
Schools have banned conkers
This story, more than any other epitomises the trivialisation of health and safety. In fact two schools are known to have asked children not to bring conkers in on the advice of doctors as children had severe nut allergies. In addition one primary school head teacher brought in safety goggles for his pupils to play conkers. However he stated that the reason behind this was that he wanted to make a statement over the increased fear of litigation. This point seems to have been lost on the media.
During the Battle of Trafalgar commemoration the actor playing Nelson had to wear a life jacket over his costume.
During an event on the Thames to mark the bi centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar an actor was dressed as Nelson. To get to the event he was transported using an RNLI lifeboat. This was a modern lifeboat and the RNLI asked him to wear a lifejacket during the trip. Given that he was in an RNLI lifeboat, and not HMS Victory, at the time it is unlikely that the lifejacket would have looked out of place.
A fancy dress festival in Wales was cancelled because the organisers were told they would have to employ an extra 60 stewards on health and safety grounds.
This relates to the Lleni fancy dress festival in Powys where the organisers simply misunderstood the regulations. There is no health and safety requirement for the organisers for events such as this to employ stewards. They could quite easily have used volunteers as they had in the past.
That is that Britain is a better and safer place because of health and safety regulation. Since the Health and safety at Work Act was introduced the number of deaths caused by work have fallen by over 75%. The rate of fatalities in now one of the lowest in the world, and much of that is because of strong, sensible regulations.
The long term effect of these myths being circulated is that the 'brand' of health and safety gets diminished. People see 'health and safety' as stupid rules and barriers, rather than as a framework for protecting those most vulnerable in society. People begin to identify the Health and Safety Executive with draconian regulations, despite the fact that none of the stories the TUC looked at involved any action by them, and they remain one of the bodies most respected by those who deal with them. In fact 89% of all employers who have had contact with the HSE have seen it as a 'helpful' organisation.
We must not be complacent. Since the passing of the Health and Work Act we have seen disasters such as Piper Alpha, the Herald of Free Enterprise and Morecambe Bay. Occupational Cancers still kill between 10 and 20,000 people every year and around 2 million people suffer from ill-health at work. We need to ensure that health risks are identified and dealt with so that workers and the public are protected. That is what health and safety is really about.
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