Making complaints to the HSE

Howard Fidderman looks at a "new" HSE system for handling complaints about dutyholders.

On this page:
Maximising HSE resources
Risk-based approach to complaints
Colouring complaints
Table 1: HSE initial decision matrix
Effectiveness of complaints system
Proactive and proportional benefits
Updated HSE complaints website.

As we noted in the last edition of HSB, the HSE has implemented permanently an experimental risk-based approach (PDF format, 55K) (on the HSE website) for how its staff respond to complaints from workers and members of the public about dutyholders. A dutyholder is a person or organisation under a legal obligation to provide for health, safety and wellbeing, so far as is reasonably practicable. In this feature, we look in detail at the system and the benefits that the HSE claims are already accruing.

The system requires NEBOSH-trained "front-line complaints officers" - whose banding is below that of an inspector - to place complaints into one of four categories, three of which are based on the level of risk. The HSE considers the approach to have been a major success, freeing up resources and inspector time to concentrate on more proactive work: in 2007/08, for example, it dealt with just under 16,500 complaints about dutyholders but anticipates the changes will reduce this total by at least 25%, to 12,200. The scheme is restricted to the HSE's Field Operations Directorate (FOD), which comprises most front-line staff and handles about 98% of all complaints. Other groups within the HSE are not implementing the procedure because they deal mainly with major hazard areas and receive few complaints in any case.

Maximising HSE resources

The HSE's previous policy for responding to complaints, which started in 2001, was that all complaints should result in some action unless they were covered by a specific exclusion. This resulted in non-warranted administrative staff following up 75% of complaints on the phone and by email, and warranted inspectors investigating the remaining 25%.

Over the years, it became clear that this was neither the best use of the HSE's resources nor the best enforcement model. The HSE started a review in 2006 and piloted a new procedure in its east and southeast region for six months in 2008. The procedure is based on the HSE's Enforcement Management Model, a tool that is applied by HSE inspectors when making enforcement decisions. The HSE then implemented the procedure throughout the UK between April and September 2009, with FOD creating a complaints-handling team in each division.

The HSE Board agreed the new system should be made permanent at its meeting on 27 January 2010, having provisionally approved it in principle at meetings in January and July 2009. The board had, however, sought further evidence on potential disadvantages after a paper from HSE officials (PDF format, 101K) (external website) considered by the board in January 2009 had noted: "Adoption of the risk-based model carries a degree of business risk because application of the risk filter requires judgment and these are not simple black/white decisions." The board appeared content with the reassurances of its officials, prompting HSE chair Judith Hackitt to tell the January 2010 meeting that the new approach marked "a major step in modernising how the organisation works".

Risk-based approach to complaints

The new system requires front-line complaints officers to place complaints into one of four categories:

• "red" - a "serious risk" that the front-line complaints officer must follow up within 24 hours or pass to an inspector to investigate;
• "amber" - a "significant risk" that the officer must follow up within five days (in one of the few changes between the pilot and final versions, the "amber" follow-up was reduced from the original 10 days, which the FOD management board considered was too long to react, especially where site conditions change quickly in sectors such as construction);
• "green" - a "low risk" that is not followed up with the dutyholder and is not recorded on COIN (the HSE's corporate operational information system); or
• "a matter of concern" - this arises where the officer cannot identify the dutyholder, which means that the concern does not satisfy the HSE's definition of "complaint" (see box 1). Where an officer would otherwise have seen "red", he or she must alert a principal inspector who will decide whether or not to visit the site. This was also a change from the pilot approach in which the complaints officer recorded matters of concern on a spreadsheet that an inspector could then look at; FOD decided, however, that an active notification was required.

Colouring complaints

When designating a complaint "red", "amber" or "green", an officer uses a matrix (see table 1) to take into account three factors:

• the seriousness of the possible injury or the health effect;
• the number of possible casualties; and
• the likelihood of the above happening.

For example, a minor injury would be categorised as "green" regardless of the likelihood of an occurrence - unless multiple minor injuries were probable, in which case it would be graded "amber". At the other end of the spectrum, all complaints that could involve multiple fatal/major injuries would be ranked "red" unless the likelihood of occurrence was "nil/negligible", in which case they would be rated "amber". The only time an over-three-day injury would rate "red" would be if multiple victims were probable.

Between 1 April and 31 October 2009, the HSE's complaints officers applied the new procedure to 8,000 complaints, categorising:

• 78% as "red" or "amber";
• 13% as "green"; and
• 9% as "matters of concern".

Of the 78% "red" or "amber" complaints, the officers followed up 68% themselves and passed the other 10% to an inspector to investigate. One-third of the 68% were red and the remainder were amber.

An HSE spokesperson told HSB that circumstances where a complaints officer cannot deal effectively with a complaint include:

• imminent risk that requires inspector attendance, for example where the emergency services are present;
• where the matter is complex, for example building stability issues or some health issues;
• where there are local issues or concerns, for example tower-crane stability or where there have been multiple complaints; and
• where no dutyholder can be established.

Effectiveness of complaints system

The HSE believes there is evidence that the system is working well:

• the seven-month period saw just 43 appeals from the 8,000 assessments, most of which (30) disputed a "green" categorisation. Ten other complainants were dissatisfied with the action achieved after a "red" or "amber" follow-up and three refused to accept that the HSE was not the enforcing authority;
• the inspector who considered the 30 "green" appeals reclassified only five (all to "amber"); and
• there is a "stable" pattern emerging from the pilot and rollout in which 80% of complaints come from members of the public, 17% from employees and 3% from ex-employees.

The HSE insists that it is also continuing to secure the same improvements under the new system as it did under the old. The evidence, it maintains, is that "complainants are offered feedback on the outcome of the complaint investigation and if conditions have not improved, they tell us". It implicitly acknowledges the questionability of this assurance, however, by adding that it is "looking again at this aspect of the procedure to see if [it] can identify a subset of complaints, where the compliance gap indicates an expectation of enforcement and where [it] can give greater consideration to deploying an inspector".

Questions about the effectiveness of the new procedure were raised at the HSE Board meeting by two of the TUC appointees, Hugh Robertson and Danny Carrigan, both of whom cautioned that while the system and appeals were working administratively, there was no evidence yet as to whether they were effective. Robertson, while "encouraged", also suggested that the HSE should look to add a mechanism to the new system that would allow safety representatives to make complaints.

Proactive and proportional benefits

The new procedure has boosted the morale of the complaints officers (see box 2) while allowing the HSE to consider complaints in line with its "Enforcement policy statement", providing responses that are proportionate, consistent and justifiable, with an effective appeals mechanism. It allows prioritisation, dealing with the highest risks first and "filtering out those at the low-risk end … some of which were very time-consuming, produced little if any health and safety benefit and distracted the focus of staff from dealing with higher-risk complaints". It also means that complainants' expectations "are not raised beyond what the health and safety law and our enforcement policy can deliver".

As anticipated, the new system has resulted in an "efficiency saving", with inspectors investigating fewer complaints - 10% of all complaints received, compared with 25% under the previous system. This, in turn, means that inspectors have served 30% fewer complaints-related enforcement notices - 239 notices in the seven months from April 2009, compared with 357 in the same period in 2008. No complaint has resulted in a prosecution under the new system, although the HSE advises that, "historically, complaints have not generated a large number of prosecutions".

This "freed-up time" is allowing inspectors to carry out more proactive work, and has, says Ashton, already seen a shift such that FOD is nearing its ideal 60:40 split between proactive and reactive work. The shift to proactive work is also "generating substantial numbers of notices in its own right": in the 30 weeks since 1 April 2009, FOD inspectors served 4,898 enforcement notices - an increase of 10% on the comparable period in 2008. There is, said the head of the HSE's field operations, David Ashton, a "settled relationship" between the levels of proactive work and enforcement notices served.

Updated HSE complaints website

The HSE Board unanimously welcomed the new system at its January meeting, with EEF-appointee Dr Sayeed Khan calling it "a real success story". Sandy Blair, who represents local authorities on the board, wondered whether the "terrific" system could be rolled out into local authorities; Ashton replied that while he had not heard about any progress in this area, he would look into it.

Following the board meeting, the HSE updated the complaints website (external website) to explain the risk-based complaints process. The HSE is also testing a prototype online direct notification form, but this will take a further three months due to "stability" issues (essentially, checks to ensure there are no adverse effects on other areas). The HSE will place a prototype e-form on its website later this year; this will allow the complaint to go directly to the appropriate team and provide for more consistent information on which to base a decision and provide clearer feedback.

Howard Fidderman is a freelance journalist and editor of HSB.