HSC consults on new powers for safety reps

News | HSW
01.06.2006

The power of trade union safety reps could be increased under new proposals out for consultation from the Health and Safety Commission (HSC). Employers would have a legal obligation to consult safety reps whenever they carried out workplace risk assessments and to respond to any representations from the reps in proposals which the HSC admits would impose high costs on business.

The proposals come in a consultation document which looks at ways of raising health and safety standards by increasing worker participation. The document proposes strengthening safety reps' legal rights as one option but is also asking for views on whether it would be useful to provide more guidance for businesses on how to meet the existing rules, or a voluntary best practice framework. The document stresses these approaches are not mutually exclusive. "We could choose one, two or all of these options," says the paper. "Or other options that you may be able to identify."

"Workers know the most about the jobs they do, so they are often in the best position to develop safe and practical systems of work," said Geoffrey Podger, HSE chief executive, launching the consultation.

The paper makes it clear that the HSC does not see worker involvement as simply consultation over workplace systems but as "involving a commitment to solving problems together". It says that the current rights of workers to participate in safety management (under legislation including the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977) form the foundation of the "final stage of worker involvement", which changes the behaviour of managers and employees. Only 37% of work-places have reached this ideal of full consultation, according to the paper, and the proposals are intended to make it more widespread. A new right for safety reps to be involved in risk assessments might have the benefit of ensuring the assessments are "more accurate and lead to the development of practical and practicable systems of work, which would have better buy-in from workers". But the paper also notes that "the costs these amendments will impose on business could be high and the benefits are currently intangible and larely unquantifiable".

The TUC's head of safety, Hugh Robertson (himself one of the HSC commissioners), gave the proposals his qualified approval, describing them in the Congress's Hazards journal as "extremely modest and limited" overall, but said the suggested strengthening of reps' rights were "major, and significant, changes".

The document, Improving Worker Involvement - Improving Health and Safety, is available at www.hse.gov.uk/consult/live.htm and submissions have to be in by 8 September.