The Lord Young Report – Common Sense Common Safety

It seems to all of us at CRS that there seems to be more positives than negatives in Lord Young’s report on health and safety.

The report, called ‘Common Sense – Common Safety’ was released on Friday 15 October 2010 following a Whitehall-led review of health and safety laws and the growth of the compensation culture.

The positives to come out of the report include:

• Recognition that “good health and safety is vitally important” and that the Health and Safety at Work Act has led to an “enviable record” on safety
• The so-called compensation culture is a problem of “perception rather than reality”
• Acknowledgement of the need for health and safety consultants to be well-qualified and experienced (we see all-to-often what happens when ‘cowboys’ try to advise)
• More transparency about local authority decisions and for the public to be able to appeal against these.

The potential concerns from Lord Young’s report include:

• The potential to lessen RIDDOR reporting
• Employers may be exempt from risk assessments for “low hazard” workers such as home workers and those self-employed
• It doesn’t tackle the need for better education and management skills
• It doesn’t tackle the ‘silly safety’ stories published by media which discredit sensible health and safety management

The report also includes four consultations where IOSH members and the public can contribute. These include:

• RIDDOR
• Implementing improved systems for assessing health and safety standards for larger organisations
• Consolidating the current array of health and safety legislation into a single set of ‘accessible’ regulations
• Reform of civil justice and compensation