Directors guidance needs teeth says UCATT

News | HSW
26.11.2007

The construction union UCATT has greeted the launch of the Institute of Directors' (IoD) new safety guidance for company boards with a renewed call for statutory health and safety duties for directors.

As reported in last month's HSW (IoD/HSC directors' duties guide good to go), the IoD's guide, approved by the Health and Safety Commission (HSC), was launched formally on 29 October and will be circulated to the institute's 50,000 members as well as being posted on the web (www.iod.com/intershoproot/eCS/Store/en/pdfs/hse_guide.pdf).

Health and safety minister Lord McKenzie greeted the launch, saying the guidance "clearly sets out the agenda for effective leadership of health and safety". IoD director general Miles Templeman added he hoped it would "help organisations integrate health and safety into business decisions in an
appropriate way."

But UCATT responded with a piece of research commissioned from the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) which suggests that voluntary guidance like the IoD's has a limited influence on directors.

The report, Bringing Justice to the Boardroom (available at www.ucatt.info/content/view/307/30/2007/10), says HSE-sponsored research into the effect of the HSC's previous voluntary guidance in 2001 found that four year later only 44% of companies had any nominated director responsible for health and safety and that while 350 workers have been killed at work in the past five years, only 13 directors of construction firms have been convicted of safety breaches.

UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie said the report revealed that the "government's failure to introduce statutory legal duties forcing directors to take responsibility for their companies' health and safety policies is literally costing workers their lives."

An HSE spokesperson did not dispute the CCA's figures but said the HSC had rejected legal duties because they did not fit the goal-centred nature of UK health and safety regulation. "We'll see what effect these guidelines have, and if they have no effect then the commission may decide to revisit it," he said.