CHAPTER 9 Health and safety at work

1. CHAPTER 9 Health and safety at work

2. Health and safety at work The purpose of the law should be to make work safe so that it does not cause personal injury – but provision also has to be made for the compensation of people who nevertheless suffer injury. • In the UK occupational health and safety legislation with criminal sanctions thus imposes duties on employers and others for the purpose of injury prevention.

3. Health and safety at work The principal Act is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASAWA 1974). • It is a framework Act enabling the making of regulations, and it is the vehicle through which EC Directives are normally implemented.

4. Health and safety at work • An important feature of the Act and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSW Regulations), the most important and comprehensive set of regulations, is that they apply to people rather than premises and, with certain exceptions, all persons are covered.

5. Health and safety at work The HASAWA 1974 sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees, other workers and members of the public, and which employees have towards themselves and each other.

6. Health and safety at work • The Act is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). • The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) is responsible for keeping the law under review and for initiating research. • The HSE has to make arrangements for enforcing the law, either through its own or local authority inspectors.

7. Health and safety at work Where the Health and Safety Commission considers that the law is not functioning well, it has three main options. It can issue: • Guidance • Approved codes of practice • Regulations.

8. Health and safety at work HSC Guidance has three purposes: • Firstly to help people understand the law by interpreting it • Secondly to help people comply with the law • Thirdly to provide technical advice.

9. Health and safety at work HSC Approved codes of practice (ACOP)offer practical guidance about how to comply with the law. • A failure to observe an approved code of practice does not render a person liable to any civil or criminal proceedings. • However, a code is admissible in evidence in a criminal court, and proof of a failure to meet its requirements will be sufficient to establish a contravention of a statutory provision, unless a court is satisfied that the provision was complied with in some other way. • The HSC considers that a duty-holder who has complied with an ACOP will have done enough to satisfy the law on the specific issues addressed by the code.

10. Health and safety at work HSC Regulations are made under HASAWA 1974. • Regulations may be proposed by the HSE and approved by Parliament. They identify specific risks and set out particular actions that must be taken. • In practice most Regulations are made to comply with EC Directives.

11. Health and safety at work Every employer with five employees or more must prepare and revise a written statement of its general policy on health and safety at work, and the organisation and arrangements for carrying out that policy. The Act does not give any further indication of what the statement should contain, but advice and guidance notes, which are not legally enforceable, are available from the HSE.

12. Health and safety at work • As a minimum the safety policy should deal with the responsibilities of all employees, from the board of directors down to the shop floor. • The statement may be used as evidence if a prosecution is launched under section 37 HASAWA 1974. It should also deal with general safety precautions, mechanisms for dealing with special hazards, routine inspections, emergency procedures, training and arrangements for consulting the workforce.

13. Health and safety at work HASAWA 1974 also places an obligation on employers to have regard for the health and safety of persons not in their employment. • Regulation 12 of the MHSW Regulations 1999 obliges employers and self-employed people to supply any person working in their undertaking who is not their employee with comprehensible information and instruction on any risks which arise out of the conduct of the undertaking. • This includes visitors as well as visiting workers or subcontractors.

14. Health and safety at work • The MHSW Regulations require all employers to conduct a risk assessment. • The purpose of this assessment is to identify the measures that must be taken to ensure compliance with the statutory provisions contained in the ACOP and the HASAWA 1974. • Assessments should include consideration of stress-related injury.

15. Health and safety at work There is a duty on employers to provide information and consult employees and/or their representatives who may be either trade-union-appointed or directly elected.

16. Health and safety at work At about the time of the adoption of the Framework Directive, the EC adopted five subsidiary Directives. The following sets of Regulations were made in Britain to implement these Directives, and many of them have been tested more in the civil than in the criminal courts. • The Manual Handling Operations Regulations • The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 • The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 • The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 • The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 • The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002 COSHH requires employers to prevent or adequately control the exposure of their employees – and others who may be affected – to hazardous substances.