HSC heads for the highway

Howard Fidderman looks at the HSC's response to the recommendations of the Government's Work-related Road Safety Task Force.

The HSC has accepted - fully or partially - 15 of the 18 recommendations of the Government's Work-related Road Safety Task Force. Subject to ministerial endorsement, this will mean that employers would, as early as 2004, be expected to manage at-work road safety in much the same way as they tackle workplace risks.

The task force reported on 22 November 2001, following a consultation exercise that elicited over 200 replies. The HSC's response comes in a report seen by HSB that was sent on 29 May 2002 to ministers at the then Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The recommendations and a summary of the HSC's response are set out in the box below. The HSC stresses that it "favours a cautious approach to implementing the recommendations to ensure that actions are effectively targeted and the resource implications are fully evaluated and subsequently manageable."

Nevertheless, the HSC still feels that too little is known about occupational road risk. Information is needed on "whether or not occupational drivers are more or less at risk than other drivers or pose a greater risk to others, and the factors that influence that risk", and "whether the workplace is a legitimate route through which to influence these factors and whether the HSE, with the tools at its disposal, is best placed to secure any necessary improvements."

Applying the HSW Act on the roads

The HSC accepts, albeit with reservations, the task force's recommendation that there should be a more rigorous application of health and safety at work law to on-the-road work activities, including occupational driving.

Although the HSW Act 1974 applies to employees on and off premises and in transit, the HSC/E have, with the backing of successive governments, not enforced this law. Public and worker safety, the HSC claims, are better protected by road traffic law enforced by the police. The task force endorsed this approach, but wanted improved liaison arrangements between the HSE and the police. But the HSC believes that "measures beyond clarifying existing arrangements would be premature at this stage and active enforcement intervention would not be welcomed by the police and would not be possible without a major effect on existing priorities and our ability to meet agreed targets".

The HSC accepts, with qualification, the task force's recommendation that "enforcing authorities led by the HSE should develop ways of working to investigate road traffic incidents and to take appropriate enforcement action". But it explicitly rejects any "greater involvement by the HSE/local authorities (LAs) during regular investigation by the police". The task force, it claims, "does not make a sufficiently robust case to justify interventions of this nature or a sufficiently clear link between this activity and potential outcomes". Instead the HSE's role should be limited to improved liaison arrangements and checklist criteria that enable the police to recognise cases of management failure. Similarly, the HSC accepts that the police should be able to pursue and prosecute employers that fail to meet their responsibilities under road traffic law. It says that new operational arrangements for accident investigation are already leading the police to take more interest in employers' responsibilities.

Integrated risk assessment

The HSC's acceptance of the above recommendations means that it will expect employers to adopt a risk-assessment approach to the management of at-work road safety, and integrate the approach into their workplace health and safety management systems.

The HSE would, as soon as possible, develop generic risk assessment-based guidance for employers and others on how to manage at-work road safety. This would be followed by sector-specific and small firms advice. The HSE would also include at-work road-related risks in the ongoing reviews of its specific guidance and encourage industry to develop its own guidance. It would also consider any need for an Approved Code of Practice three years after the guidance was produced (the task force had recommended a spring 2004 review).

The HSC supports the principles of the task force's recommendation that employers should ensure that their employees are competent to drive, or work on or by roads, safely. But it cautions that it is "uncertain how, in practice" this would be achieved, believing that industry, in discussion with training providers, should establish its own benchmarks and targets.

The HSC says that the ongoing review of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) should consider the practicalities and benefits of the task force's recommendation that employers should report at-work road traffic incidents involving fatal, major and over-3-day injuries. Although it cannot prejudge the review, the HSC insists that, regardless of any changes to RIDDOR, the primary trigger for HSE or LA involvement would be a notification by the police.

Careful management and limited resources

But the HSC is concerned that these initiatives might also "raise unhelpful expectations about the enforcement role of the HSE and LAs that cannot, in practice, be met". It will review its enforcement guidance (Enforcement: HSC strengthens investigation and prosecution policy) to ensure that the circumstances in which the HSE and LAs will take a reactive or proactive interest are clear.

The extension of risk assessment to the roads will therefore need "careful management", cautions the HSC, and the "early years will be characterised by awareness-raising and guidance, to be followed in time, and only if absolutely necessary, by enforcement". But it even has reservations about the extent of its role in a publicity campaign, and believes more information is needed on the sectors that are of highest risk and "most amenable to action" in order to plan an effective campaign.

The issue of limited resources underpins the HSC's response to the task force. The HSC points out that its basic strategy is to target resources at priorities and to limit involvement with non-priority issues. It would, therefore, "need to agree the degree of priority it attaches to this topic if resources are to be redirected from other areas." Local authorities "will be following the same approach and will similarly have no immediate spare capacity to deal with work-related road safety".

In an accompanying letter, HSC chair Bill Callaghan is unequivocal that the HSE will need extra resources to extend its activities to the roads. He reminds ministers that the HSC's submission to the latest spending review highlights the "considerable and continuing resource pressures on the HSE", and so looks to the Government to "earmark funds from the Roads Strategy budget" for some of the additional work.

He adds that: "whilst the Commission is making no bid for enforcement resources at this stage, the HSE could not accommodate any increase in demands to inspect employers' arrangements for managing occupational road risk, including investigating road traffic incidents, or to engage duty-holders more actively within current resource limits."