Happy together now as the HSE and councils make up
Howard Fidderman looks at the HSC's new-found love for local authorities.
Earlier this year we reviewed the HSC's strategy for improving health and safety standards in UK workplaces1. Amid the verbiage (see "All dressed up", but where will the HSC's strategy go?), we noted that the strategy had the potential to be both significant and radical, and that nowhere was this more likely than in the projected changes to the relationship between the HSC, the HSE and local authorities (LAs). The days of the HSC threatening to remove enforcement powers from failing LAs were clearly over, replaced by a spirit of cooperation.
The HSC's strategy envisaged the HSE and LAs working together, but left the detail to the enforcing bodies themselves, asking them to establish an 18-month strategic programme that would deliver an effective partnership at local, regional and national levels with common goals and standards. September saw one of the first significant steps in the programme, with the publication of a "statement of intent" - the "partnership agreement" promised in the HSC's strategy2 - endorsed by the HSC, the HSE, the Local Government Association (LGA), the Welsh LGA, the Convention of Scottish LAs, and the LA Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS). Although as jargon-ridden as the strategy, the statement lays down what should prove to be the fundamentals of a new approach.
The statement of intent
The joint statement of intent, which was agreed in July 2004 and unveiled at the annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in Torquay on 15 September, sets out seven commitments that cover:
effective partnerships between the HSE and LAs;
possible changes in the types of premises enforced by LAs and the HSE;
the involvement of LAs in decision-making;
improved communication;
shared information and support;
equitable auditing of the HSE and LAs; and
joined-up action with government departments.
Following the agreement, HSC chair Bill Callaghan said that he was pleased with the "positive approach" of the meeting: "We all recognised that the HSC and HSE had to give much greater recognition to the contribution LAs can make to improving health and safety standards in the workplace. At the same time, LAs and their representatives had to respond to the challenges of partnership working by being open to new ways of working and to increasing cooperation with their colleagues in the HSE, as well as within their own and other authorities."
The seven commitments
The Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1998 make LAs responsible for health and safety enforcement in half of the UK's workplaces (1.175 million premises), employing 11 million people. Most of these are located in lower-risk sectors such as offices, retail, warehouses, hotel and catering, call centres and residential care homes. The HSE is responsible for higher-risk activities and premises, such as factories, work with chemicals, and nuclear and offshore installations.
The statement of intent repeats the HSC's belief that "there is no lasting logic" to these divisions and ways of working, "which do not capture the full potential of the HSE and LAs to work together". The HSC's strategy had previously called the arrangements "complex, confusing and based on boundaries and approaches that suit more the convenience of the regulator than the needs of business or the workforce".
The statement commits the parties to developing an effective and coherent partnership between the HSE and LAs that makes the best use of their respective strengths and collective resources. They should enjoy a closer relationship based on a "mutual understanding" of their respective strengths and the value of local and central interventions.
Linked to this, the signatories will look at the institutions and legal framework governing the relationship between the HSC, the HSE and LAs. This will include the completion of the current review of the HSE/LA Enforcement Liaison Committee (HELA). Although the statement acknowledges that the 1989 Regulations may need to be amended, it emphasises that the "approach will be first to determine how the partnership can best work, and only then to see what changes are needed to the legal framework to enable this to happen". The statement does not, however, elaborate on a commitment in the HSC's strategy that certain sectors and large organisations will be subject to a national approach delivered through a centrally coordinated programme.
The signatories will also look to improve the consistency and coordination of central and devolved government requirements that impact on regulatory services, ie a joined-up approach.
Equal partners
Several of the commitments concern an equal relationship between the HSE and LAs and will see:
the HSE provide or share information, training, guidance and support to LAs equitably, as well as access to expertise and specialist resources;
improved communication to ensure that LAs are involved in the development of policy advice to the HSC, and in the planning and delivery of the operational activities that implement the advice. The statement notes that: "This will require a change of attitudes and culture to ensure that LAs are able effectively to contribute in a timely manner and their interests are seen as an important and necessary consideration in the HSC's and the HSE's work";
new arrangements for monitoring and auditing the work of the enforcing authorities that reflect the status of the HSE and LAs as partners and apply equally to both; and
a joint approach to developing the arrangements to deliver all of the commitments.
For starters
Although the strategic programme is in its development stage, the HSC says that, as "a start", the HSE and LAs will build on and publicise current examples of best practice. The HSE has already appointed regionally-based partnership managers to facilitate working with LAs - all but one are HSE principal inspectors. The managers will supplement the work of the HSE's enforcement liaison officers and will work with elected members, chief executives and other LA staff. The managers are developing regional plans and expect to run regional events before the end of 2004.
A second initiative saw the first meeting of the LACORS health and safety policy forum in July 2004. LACORS is a local government central body that tries to develop consistent and coordinated LA regulatory services across the UK3. The forum helps LACORS tackle the most important health and safety enforcement issues for LA officers, especially when representing the views of LAs to central government.
LACORS executive director Derek Allen described the forum's first meeting as a "milestone" and particularly welcomed the statement's recognition of the contribution that health and safety enforcement can make to local community health and wellbeing. LACORS, he pledged, "will work hard to make sure the statement of intent is backed up by actions that will result in improvements for local communities".
At the moment, the statement is no more than what it professes to be, namely a statement of intent. It is, as Allan Davies, the head of the HSE's LA unit and strategic programme manager, claims, "an important public declaration of the commitment we are all making to work in a closer partnership". But the HSC, the HSE and LAs know that they need to start transferring the intent into action, particularly after a summer that has seen the publication of two reports highlighting the gravity of the situation. The first, which covered LA enforcement of health and safety in 2002/03, confirmed a year-on-year deterioration in performance (see box 1 ). The second, from a parliamentary select committee, highlighted these failings and pointed to a "squeezing" of LA health and safety resources, competing demands within LAs, conflicting demands from central government and recruitment and retention difficulties (see Inspections down, injuries up: health and safety the LA way). The next year should reveal the extent to which the new partnership can circumvent these difficulties.
Howard Fidderman is a freelance journalist and editor of HSB.
1 "Strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond", free at: www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/hsc/strategy2010.pdf.
2 "LAs and the HSE working together. Strategic programme: joint vision and statement of intent", free at: www.hse.gov.uk/lau.
