Health and Safety Not Important?
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Bosses do not see health and safety as an important issue, according to a survey by Premierline Direct.
Only 37 per cent of managers say staff welfare and safety is a concern, compared with 86 per cent who cite profit growth as important.
Chris Little, Managing Director of the firm, says health and safety needs to be taken more seriously: ‘Adopting a responsible approach to the welfare of staff and customers can not only help remove many potential hindrances affecting productivity, but will undoubtedly protect lives.
‘In addition, it is not always recognised that failure to prove the business is complying with health and safety legislation could also invalidate insurance policies, leaving the company exposed to prosecution.’
An excellent prognosis by Mr Little, and had the survey be more representative of UK SME’s I would have been appalled at these figures. Although all is not what it may seem!
Of the 800 businesses polled, 61 per cent of SMEs say they don’t have a formal health and safety policy and of those that do, 78 per cent say they haven’t amended it within the last year.
The insurer found that 61% of respondents don’t have a formal written health and safety policy in place, while 78% said they haven’t amended it in the last year. The Health and Safety Executive does say that companies of five or more employees ‘should’ have a written policy. They actually say a lot more (MJ)!
Whilst profit is of course why most businesses are by and large trading , it may not be common knowledge that research published by the HSE on an annual basis, shows that around two – three million people were suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work.
This led to a total of 36 million work days lost (1.5 days per worker), 30 million due to work-related ill health and six million due to workplace injury. Estimates range between three and four billion pounds are lost annually. Whilst many organisations will consider this an acceptable loss, indeed when calculated down to an individual SME the figure is somewhat comparable to having a fiver on a weekly lottery punt against winning a multi-million pound jackpot and thus for many becomes an acceptable financial loss! It is not so much the result that is disconcerting; it is why the levels are so high.
This of course does not include financial punishment or time & money lost to section 21 and 22 notices (Improvement & Prohibition), when added up it runs to a princely sum. This survey by Premierline in this writer’s opinion, is quite frankly not worth the paper it is written on – and portrays a completely ambiguous and biased depiction of health & safety compliance among SME’s.
Without delving further I had the following information on file from 2004, and this gives a quick breakdown for SME’s in the UK.
• 2,200,000 businesses have no employees (about 61% of SMEs).
• 1,450,000 businesses have an annual turnover of less than £50,000 of SMEs).
• 1,350,000 businesses have less than £10,000 worth of assets.
So to poll 800 businesses and come up with ‘a’ result that is intended to be truly representative of UK SME’s, is about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe. Notwithstanding though, I do applaud any effort to improve workplace health and safety, so long as a truly representative poll is taken before presenting erroneous facts to industry.
Compliance and time spent on health and safety is frequently exaggerated. If you happen to be an SME and you are still awake, go to Helpful advice from the HSE and see for yourself what is required. If then you require any advice or interpretation, don’t hesitate to call SMART Health & Safety Solutions for added assistance. What I will say is; it is nowhere near the problem you might think.
