A partnership approach to safety
The Primary Authority scheme is expanding rapidly. The Local Better Regulation Office sets out what it involves.
One million employees are now covered for health and safety issues under the Primary Authority scheme operated by LBRO (the Local Better Regulation Office), providing benefits for business and regulatory enforcers alike.
There are now over 1,100 partnerships in place and Primary Authority is growing in popularity, both with local authorities and business, because it provides legal underpinning to advice given by enforcement officers.
Businesses which operate across local council boundaries find the scheme valuable in cutting down the amount of time and duplicated effort in dealing with enforcement officers all over the country.
By choosing a partnership with one particular local authority - the Primary Authority – these businesses benefit from having a single point of contact for local regulatory issues such as trading standards, food safety, and health and safety.
For these firms, the most important aspect is the assurance that advice given by the Primary Authority holds legal weight, and must be respected by other local authorities. In turn, local authorities can recover costs for the partnership, and benefit from limited liability should their advice be found to be defective.
However, the scheme provides yet another benefit for businesses and those who regulate them: a bird’s eye view of safety. Directors, via the primary authority partnership, get the benefit of competent third party oversight on the extent to which their policies and procedures are being implemented across their premises, and how effective they are.
For enforcers, the advantage of having central reporting of incidents is that they get better oversight of the company’s activities, its strengths and weaknesses. In turn, this means they can better target their activities thereby helping reduce the risk of injuries and ill-health in their localities.
The advantages that Primary Authority offers have been highlighted by the provisions of the Corporate Manslaughter Act, which have had a major impact on companies’ health and safety requirements.
With employers liable to prosecution if someone is killed at work or because of a failure in how the company's activities are managed or organised amounting to a gross breach of duty (i.e. where the company's conduct falls far below reasonable be expectation) it’s obvious why having the bigger picture approach is so desirable.
Penalties can include an unlimited fine together with remedial orders that require an organisation to correct managerial failings. Fines of up to 10% of the annual turnover of a company can be imposed and, potentially even more damaging, would be a court-imposed publicity order providing details of the offence, fine and remedy.
In addition to the essential contribution to public protection, there are also strong strategic reasons for local authorities and businesses to get involved with Primary Authority. Whilst a Primary Authority can recover costs of providing advice and support it gives to a business, it can choose to waive any fee; for instance, if it is helping employers to retain jobs in its area.
Britvic Soft Drinks, one of the leading businesses in its sector in Britain, signed up with Chelmsford Borough Counciland Essex County Council. Chelmsford acts as a single point of contact for food safety and hygiene issues and Essex does the same for fair trading, food standards, metrology and product safety.
Britvic, which owns brands like Robinsons, Tango as well as the Britvic brand itself, has its headquarters in Chelmsford, and Primary Authority is a way for it to build stronger relationships with key local businesses as part of their commitment to local enterprise and local economic development. It’s an example of how, by more effective enforcement, council’s can help reduce the burden on local employers and help their business in these difficult economic times.
Another example of how well these partnerships can work in practical terms is that of Leeds City Council which saved one of its primary authority businesses the £1m cost of unnecessary health and safety measures. The council helped specialist trades distributor, BSS Group, develop a robust and cost-effective approach to legionella prevention; as part of a primary authority partnership that provides a single point of contact for health and safety regulation for hundreds of the Group’s sites across the UK.
The primary authority relationship had a real impact on the company’s approach to health and safety. It was concerned about the need to properly address the risk from legionella at its sites and hired a consultancy to devise a control strategy. The total cost for implementation of the recommendations would have been in excess of £1m.
Primary Authority continues to grow. A greater variety of Primary Authority nominations are coming through, with smaller regional businesses taking advantage of the assurance that the scheme offers. More manufacturers are coming on board too, as it is important for them to have clarity and assurance about new products. Each new product launch requires investment of time and money, and the assurance of advice given under Primary Authority is a boost for the confidence and effectiveness of subsequent sales and marketing.
The Government has been consulting on extending the Primary Authority scheme. And it has launched two documents underpinning a consultation on regulatory enforcement which seeks views on the best ways to deliver improvements. Proposed changes will deliver commitments made in the Growth Review.
The two consultation documents are a discussion paper on improving the implementation of regulation and a document on the future of LBRO and the Primary Authority scheme.
You can comment on through the Red Tape Challenge at the Red Tape Challenge web site and via the live consultation.
