[IER] UK government downplaying Covid-19 workplace risk, IER report warns

Fri Mar 12 17:27:01 GMT 2021

News brief - 12/03/21                                                                            <https://us12.campaign-archive.com/?e=__test_email__&u=f121e48a8bb6d3101590c12d3&id=186f05af80> View this email in your browser 

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New IER report: HSE and Covid at work - a case of regulatory failure 

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As teased at the beginning of this week, the IER's new  <https://www.ier.org.uk/product/hse-and-covid-at-work-a-case-of-regulatory-failure/> HSE and Covid at work: a case of regulatory failure has now been released and is available for purchase (or for free to subscribers) on our website.

Welcoming the report, Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights and Protections, Andy McDonald, said: "In a time of national crisis it is more important than ever that the government’s actions are held up to scrutiny. The findings of this report are deeply concerning – if health and safety laws and Covid-19 rules are not enforced, they are not worth the paper they are written on. 

"When a deadly disease sweeps the country we need worker protections more than ever, yet the government has effectively shielded employers from prosecution even while coming down hard on individual citizens who break the same rules. We have seen the tragic results of under-regulated workplaces in outbreaks across the country, including at the DVLA offices in Swansea. The workers affected – and those in our emergency services and NHS who fought to save their lives – deserve answers as to how this was allowed to happen."

Scroll down for more details on the report and its contents.

 <https://www.ier.org.uk/press-releases/uk-government-downplaying-covid-19-workplace-risk-report-warns/> Read full story 

Join our authors for a detailed briefing on the report

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A panel made up of our expert authors will provide more detail to the report - which is the first publication of a two-year programme of work into health and safety at work and proposals for its reform.

Learn more about the report, the project, and be part of the debate by joining us at this full-morning event. 

 <https://www.ier.org.uk/events/health-safety-law-and-enforcement-fit-to-protect-the-workers-of-the-21st-century/> Book your place 

WATCH: HSE and Covid at Work

 <https://youtu.be/K5m4Wx7DA0Q> 

 <https://www.ier.org.uk/product/hse-and-covid-at-work-a-case-of-regulatory-failure/> Download the report 

Key factors identified in the report

Severe lack of resources

*	Inspectors were themselves locked down when ‘spot checks’ were announced. Demonstrating the severity of the risk to workers, the HSE barred Inspectors from making workplace visits because of the danger to them of making such visits. As a result, ‘spot checks’ were conducted by phone despite 67% of people in a YouGov survey favouring random in-person checks.
*	Austerity. Following a 58% funding cut over the last 10 years, which forced the HSE to reduce its staffing levels by 36%, there were too few inspectors to perform ‘spot checks’ on the nation’s 5.5m health and safety dutyholders. The £14m of extra funding barely made a dent in the nearly £1000m lost by the HSE during 10 years of government austerity and covered just 0.5% of HSE activity.

A decline in workplace inspections even as risk increased

*	Workplace inspections fell rather than increased during the pandemic. The number of workplace inspections completed between May and September 2020 was 40% lower than during the same period in 2019. Even care homes, where the virus presented an extremely lethal threat, were not adequately inspected, with only eight having received a visit by September 2020.
*	Funding rules forced public money into private hands. The HSE was not permitted to use any of the £14m extra funding to train new inspectors, so more than half of this money was siphoned off to private companies to ‘inspect’ employers. In fact, this was done from call centres staffed by untrained workers who made 15-minute, scripted phone-calls to employers. The ineffectiveness of this strategy was evidenced by the findings of a TUC survey revealing very clear breaches of the law in over a third of workplaces. Meanwhile, the UK’s richest health and safety resource – nearly 100,000 trained trade union health and safety reps – were not invited to participate.

A light-touch approach to employers and the law

*	No legal standing for “Covid-secure” guidance. In direct contrast to the various emergency laws made in relation to social activities and other forms of pandemic control, the measures employers were asked to take were not backed by the force of law. Instead, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the HSE issued ‘guidance’.
*	Legal duties to workers consistently downplayed. The IER’s report identifies two Acts of Parliament and seven sets of regulations relevant to the duties owed to workers, but found these were barely mentioned in the guidance given to businesses. As a result, the guidance failed to emphasise the legal obligations of employers to protect the health and safety of workers.

Recommendations

Concluding this initial report, the team made the following recommendations:

*	The urgent launch of a major independent public inquiry into the future of the regulation of safety and health at work in the UK, with a focus on creating a regulatory system, including an effective regulator, that will better protect the health and safety of all workers in the UK, now and in the future.
*	A significant increase in investment in the HSE to promote stronger enforcement of legal protections, thereby improving their effectiveness.
*	A comprehensive review of enforcement strategies employed by the HSE and local authorities, including a critical examination of the – currently rare and diminishing – use of legal sanctions.
*	Ensure the political independence of the HSE by considering its reconstitution in line with the United Nations’ Paris Principles, which require the involvement of representatives from civil society and the ringfencing of adequate funds to prevent government from imposing its political beliefs through budgetary controls.
*	Strengthen trade union safety representatives’ rights to access workplaces, undertake preventative work and support the enforcement of the law, such as through the issuing of improvement notices and the bringing of private prosecutions.
*	Enhance existing safety representative rights relating to the provision of information, consultation, and training (including paid time off to undertake it).
*	Reform the current statutory framework for health and safety at work to better protect workers in modern, more casualised, forms of employment, including those found in the gig economy.
*	Reform and enhance current laws permitting workers to stop work in conditions of serious and imminent danger, – provisions derived from EU law and provided under Sections 44 and 100 of the Employment Rights Act,.
*	Consider adopting international models of co-enforced oversight, that involve State regulators working alongside trade unions and other civil society organisations to monitor and enforce compliance with legal standards.
*	Explore the value and application of forms of supply chain regulation under which powerful supply chain actors have duties to ensure that they support effective health and safety management and compliance in supplier organisations. This would, for instance, would make fashion retailers buying from dangerous Leicester garment factories partly liable for the dangerous conditions there.

The team behind the report will now establish a Committee of Inquiry that will take evidence from relevant parties to understand how reforms to health and safety legislation could provide better protection for workers in modern workplaces.

 <https://www.ier.org.uk/product/hse-and-covid-at-work-a-case-of-regulatory-failure/> Download the report 

IER and Covid-19

Due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus disease and the need to keep our staff, supporters and speakers safe, IER is holding all events online until further notice.

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