The business sense of top-down health and safety

As a nation facing major public spending cuts and a period of austerity, Britain needs effective planning, management and leadership to ensure that the negative effects on people are minimised, by Richard Jones IOSH Policy and Technical Director

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is keen to look not only at solutions to the challenges, but also to identify any opportunities that lie ahead.

Competent and visible leadership is essential for successful organisations and economies. And it’s more important than ever that the health and safety profession explains and promotes the business case for good risk management, to both central and local government. That’s because the policies they create affect large numbers of workers and their families, as well as the populations and local communities that they serve.

Leaders and budget-holders need to appreciate the ‘hidden’ health and safety implications of their decisions, so that costcutting does not end up costing lives. They also need to know that a positive work experience is good for people’s health and wellbeing and makes good business sense. After all, positive feelings about work are linked to higher productivity, profitability and customer loyalty.

Cutting costs – not corners
As the Coalition tackles the country’s structural deficit, Government department budgets are being slashed. Recent estimates suggest that around a third of a million public sector jobs could be lost over four years. Reorganisation and cutbacks need to be properly considered, organised and controlled to protect the health and safety of workers and the general public.

Managers need to assess the impact of change and make sure they have sufficient competent staff in safety-critical areas. Hazards including excessive working hours, defective equipment, poor infrastructure and inadequate training can all lead to work-related injury and illness, unscheduled downtime and extra costs for service delivery and the economy. However, this presents a golden opportunity to embed sensible health and safety in training for new jobs, businesses, apprenticeships and internships at the outset.

We know that in post-recession recovery periods accidents can rise due to increases in working hours and fewer experienced staff. And where growth is slow and fragile, under-investment and delays in purchasing of equipment, maintenance and training can mean more accidents happen.

Ostensible ‘savings’ through false economies and ‘cornercutting’ should be avoided.

In its short guide for directors (and their equivalents) of corporate bodies and public and third sector organisations, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) outlines four key health and safety management areas – planning; delivery; monitoring; and review.

It highlights the importance of leading from the top on health and safety, with visible commitment, and good communication and management systems. Use of suitably designed procurement and supply chain policies can also help companies avoid introducing hazards into their operations from outside, by ensuring goods and service providers meet required standards and criteria.

Health, wealth and wellbeing
It isn’t only accidents, injuries and physical illness, but also our mental health and wellbeing that can be affected by change. This can lead to uncertainty, fears about job security and a need for major readjustment.

Staffing cuts, broadened responsibilities and changing accountabilities may all take their toll. Across Britain last year, around 435,000 workers suffered stress, depression or anxiety they put down to their work - this led to an estimated 9.8 million working days lost.

Absence isn’t the only factor here – workers may also attend work ill because they don’t want to let down their colleagues, employers or clients. This can lead to underperformance, accidents and mistakes. Prevention, communication and support are all vital here and there are plenty of guidance and good practice case studies from the public sector to draw from. For instance, in the free IOSH guide, ‘Working well – guidance on promoting health and wellbeing at work’, we highlight an example from East Sussex Council where an estimated £900,000 was saved in a year through better occupational health provision, wellbeing promotion and absence management.

Lord Young review
Last year, Lord Young of Graffham conducted a review of health and safety and the so-called ‘compensation culture’ - a culture he acknowledges is a problem of perception, not reality. To tackle this public confusion, his report supports reform of the civil justice system, simplification of the claims process, and restricting advertising by personal injury claims management firms.

He also recommends reassuring police officers and firefighters they won’t be prosecuted for heroic acts, revising guidance on pupil safety for educational visits and school security and more use of risk-benefit assessment for children’s play areas. Also, that local authorities should explain, in writing, any banning of activities on health and safety grounds, with an appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman available. He hopes all this will reduce over-caution and restore the good name of health and safety.

In terms of standards, the report says local authorities should have to participate in the food hygiene rating system. It suggests publication of results and more inspections combining food safety with health and safety enforcement.

A spring consultation is scheduled for exploring improvements to the system for assessing health and safety in larger, multioutlet companies. Lord Young’s review requests more assistance for employers with compliance through online risk assessment tools, checklists and codes. On health and safety consultants, he advocates a voluntary accreditation scheme initially, eventually becoming statutory if necessary.

IOSH welcomes this support for improving health and safety consultancy where it’s needed, but other recommendations must not over-simplify or lower standards of protection for workers and the public.

Getting and being the best
Although the law requires employers to have competent health and safety assistance, in practice, it can be unclear what this means.

While good health and safety advice is invaluable – poor guidance can be dangerous and wasteful.

We believe that the current situation is wrong. At the moment, anyone can operate as a health and safety consultant without relevant qualifications, experience or professional membership. Employers, workers and the public deserve the best advice available, because this enables organisations to improve their health and safety cultures – becoming the best performers themselves. Decision-makers
agree. When asked in a survey for the HSE, they felt the top two solutions to overcaution were definitive guidance and good health and safety advice.

The driver behind the new consultant accreditation scheme that IOSH, HSE and others have worked on is to improve quality assurance and consumer protection.

Those that can register will have to meet agreed competence criteria, be completing continuing professional development, be bound by a code of professional conduct and covered by insurance. That will mean employers using the register to select consultants will have clearer information about their suitability. The new online register, Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR), will launch early this year and is free to access.

The majority of SMEs seem to be keen on the idea. As part of the feasibility study into the scheme conducted last year, a poll of 1,000 business leaders in UK SMEs showed over half would probably use such a register, with more than half (52 per cent) more likely to seek health and safety assistance. Despite only being a voluntary scheme, IOSH believes OSHCR is a step in the right direction and envisages the use of accredited health and safety consultants becoming the ‘norm’ in Britain.

Conclusion
As Britain grapples with its finances while competing in a globalised economy, we rely more than ever on the skills and judgments of our organisations’ leaders and decision-makers.

The IOSH website provides a lot of free guidance, including ‘Think about health and safety – what elected members of local authorities need to know’ and an online occupational health toolkit, covering stress, musculoskeletal disorders, skin conditions and inhalation hazards.

We need a well-trained, effectively managed and resilient workforce – never forgetting that people are an organisation’s greatest asset and to that effect, they need to be properly looked after if they are to deliver to their best ability.

Strong leaders, an involved workforce and competent health and safety advice are the essential building blocks for achieving this.