New statutory code for LA health and safety inspections comes into force

A new statutory code coming into force today (29 May) will require local authorities to focus health and safety inspections on higher risks or where intelligence suggests employees or the public are at risk.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, the National Enforcement Code will see tens of thousands of businesses removed from this kind of inspection, including most shops and offices.

However, checks are to continue on poor performers and at sites where there are higher risk activities. The latter include cooling towers and buried liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) gas pipes.

The code sets out what is meant by “adequate arrangements for enforcement” and replaces the existing s. 18 Health and Satefy at Work etc Act 1974 standard.

It concentrates on the following four objectives:

• Clarifying the roles and responsibilities of business, regulators and professional bodies to ensure a shared understanding on the management of risk;
• Outlining the risk-based regulatory approach that local authorities should adopt with reference to the Regulator’s Compliance Code, HSE’s Enforcement Policy Statement and the need to target relevant and effective interventions that focus on influencing behaviours and improving the management of risk;
• Setting out the need for the training and competence of local authority health and safety regulators linked to the authorisation and use of HSWA powers; and
• Explaining the arrangements for collection and publication of local authority data and peer review to give an assurance on meeting the requirements of the code.

Minister for Employment Mark Hoban said: “We need health and safety that protects people where there are real risks but doesn’t stifle businesses.

“There are too many examples of local councils imposing unnecessary burdens by inspecting low risk businesses. This new code should put a stop to this by putting common sense back into the system.”

HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: “Real improvement in safety performance will come from targeting those who put their employees at greatest risk. Local inspectors have a very important role to play in ensuring the effective and proportionate management of risks by businesses, and the code is designed to guide them to do this.

“It sets out how targeting should be achieved, providing certainty for both businesses and regulators. HSE will be working with local authorities to ensure the code is successfully implemented.”

The code was developed after Professor Ragnar Lofstedt recommended – in his government-commissioned report Reclaiming health & safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation – that the HSE be given a stronger role in directing local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement activity.

Cllr Mehboob Khan, chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said it was misleading for the Government to state that councils would only be able to target proactive inspections from a national list of high risk activities or in response to intelligence about an individual business.

He explained: “It creates the impression that they are able to ban councils from actions that may be in response to the needs of local businesses or general concerns from their residents. In reality this new code does not do this.

“Councils across the country are working hard every day to provide very real support and advice to businesses in their area and encourage economic growth. It is a key priority for every single council. Environmental health teams are at the heart of this effort, working to free responsible businesses from unnecessary regulation and provide practical advice where it is needed."

Cllr Khan argued that all health and safety inspections had long been carried out on a risk based approach, which was based not only on national risk assessment but also issues that were of concern to local communities.

He pointed out that the HSE created a ‘challenge panel’ to address the perceived issue of local authorities creating unnecessary burdens almost 18 months ago but this only received one official complaint about a council.

More information on the code can be found here.