Workplace Oversight During the Pandemic - Insights and Challenges
Workplace oversight during the pandemic, with a focus on the impact of funding and enforcement activities by HSE. Explore responses to the pandemic, including spot checks, investigations, and challenges faced in ensuring Covid-19 secure workplaces.
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Presentation Transcript
Workplace oversight during the pandemic Phil James
Themes HSE before the pandemic: Funding Staffing Enforcement activity Responses to the pandemic: Additional funding Spot checks and investigations Enforcement activity Guidance Reflections
HSE before the pandemic Significant declines in funding and enforcement: Central government funding fell in real terms by 58% over period 2009/10 to 2019/20 Total HSE staffing fell by 36% over the same period Over the period 2010 to 2020: FOD inspections fell by 38% Enforcement notices declined by 36% Convictions by 39% Same (but worse) trends apparent with regard to local authority staffing and activity
Responses to pandemic Government unilaterally provided HSE with 14 million in additional funding to ensure that workplaces were Covid-19 secure compared with a fall in government funding of around 100 million Funding was to be used primarily for spot checks In response HSE contracted with outside commercial organisations to undertake such checks Spot checks based on 3 stage process: Telephone call Follow-up conversation in response to concerns Workplace visit
Responses to pandemic According to government, as of 5 July 2021 HSE had conducted over 275,000 spot checks. These encompassed: 98,109 sport checks by (unwarranted) partner organisation 17,519 inspections by (warranted) inspectors So a total of only around 115,000 visits, most not made by inspectors This against the backdrop of a significant decline in HSE inspection in general Clearly a highly inadequate level of workplace oversight given the number of UK workplaces
Responses to pandemic Also insufficient taking into account employer compliance with their preventive obligations HSE s recent review of its Enforcement Management model revealed: 45% of HSE spot checks and investigations of concerns undertaken between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021 identified contraventions Actions subsequently taken involved the issuing of letters in 9% of cases and enforcement notices in 1% 20% of working age people testing positive experience symptoms for 5 weeks or more All this against a wider picture of HSE downplaying the legal duties of employers and endorsing government guidance and claiming that its actions have been proportionate
Reflections In the IER s booklet HSE and Covid: A Case of Regulatory Failure it is argued that HSE has become a hollowed-out shadow of what a safety regulator needs to be The statistics provided clearly demonstrate the validity of this conclusion What is perhaps most disturbing of all is how the HSE has ceased to provide any independent leadership in relation to workplace health and safety policy Instead it has become a subservient creature of government Consequently putting HSE right requires action not only in respect of its resources but also with regard to how it is governed
