The Future of Safety Enforcement

1

• The Future of Safety Enforcement
• London, 24 November 2008
• Responding to the
• Governments Agenda
• Steve Tombs, Chair, CCA and Prof. of Sociology,
  Liverpool John Moores University

2
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• A Crisis in Enforcement.
• Work is much more likely to be a source of
• violence in Britain than those real crimes
• recorded by the Home Office yet declining
• state response

3
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• HSEs Response

4
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Nevertheless I do have to object to the manner
  in which a statement I made to the
• DWP Select Committee has been artificially
  truncated to misrepresent my and HSE
• senior management's position on resourcing.
• As is in fact completely clear from the full
  exchange, the point I was making was that
• there is no objective manner of determining the
  number of inspectors needed for an
• enforcement body, that in these circumstances one
  is reliant on trying to measure the
• impact of movements from the existing number and
  that if we were to find on a
• particular issue we need more inspectors, I
  personally would be very happy to
• recommend that.
• I should be grateful if you would correct your
  briefing to properly quote from my
• remarks to the Select Committee. At the same time
  you might also like to acknowledge
• that the civil servant status of HSE staff put
  them in a different position in giving
• evidence to Select Committees than police
  officers. This is a rather elementary point, of
• which you might reasonably be expected to be
  aware
• Geoffrey Podger, Letter/Press Release 17 June 2008

5
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Staffing
• 3,399 staff at 1 April 2008 at 1 April 2002,
  number of HSE staff was 4,282 (21 fall)
• 1,238 front-line inspectors at 1 April 2008
  1,625 front-line inspectors in 2002 (24 fall)

6
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Enforcement Activities Inspections
• HSE inspectors undertook 41,496 inspections in
  2007/08 , compared to 65,012 inspections in
  2001/02 (36 fall)
• Enforcement Activities Investigations
• 10.5 of reported major injuries investigated in
  2006/07, compared to 18.3 in 2001/02

7
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Enforcement Activities Notices
• 13,750 enforcement notices issued in 2007/08,
  compared to 17,042 in 2001/02, a 19 fall
• HSE notices 7,740 in 07/08, 11,082 in 01/02, a
  30 fall
• Enforcement Activities Prosecutions
• 1,382 prosecutions in 2007/08, compared to 2,336
  in 2001/02, a 41 fall
• HSE prosecutions 1,028 in 07/08, 1,986 in
  01/02, a 48 fall

8
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• An ideological and material assault on
• regulation
• The New Realities of Risk-Regulation

9
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Targeted Intervention
• the knowledge base for targeting?
• the messages of targeting?
• the relationship between targeting and resources?
• The pseudo-scientific language of risk as the
  only remaining
• basis for enforcement
• in reality, a shift to voluntarism which
  makes the vulnerable more vulnerable.

10
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• Lessons from the early 1980s
• Recession makes work more dangerous
• 1981-85 incidence rates of fatal and major
  injuries across British manufacturing increased
  by 31, in construction 45
• the hidden burden of ill-health

11
Responding to the Governments Agenda

• And the contemporary outlook
• the scale and dimensions of the unfolding
  recession
• a changed political landscape
• (pseudo-Keynesian) infrastructural projects
• further cutbacks in social provision and social
  protection