The Löfstedt Review

The Löfstedt Review has been published

The 110 page report, has followed on from Lord Young's report last year and reviews the operation of health and safety laws and the growth of compensation culture, and puts together a summary of recommendations.

Below are some of the main points of the report:

Following his review of health and safety legislation, Professor Lofstedt has concluded that there is no case for radically altering current health and safety legislation. It is generally felt that the existing regulatory requirements are broadly right, and that regulation has a role to play in preventing injury and ill health in the workplace.

In his report, Professor Lofstedt suggests that, in general, the problem lies less with the regulations themselves, and more with the way they are interpreted and applied.

Professor Lofstedt has made 19 recommendations aimed at reducing the burden of unnecessary regulation on businesses. The Government has accepted his recommendations.

The recommendations aim to help businesses reclaim ownership of the management of health and safety.

All of the recommendations should be delivered by April 2015 but in some cases, earlier target dates have been set.

Key Recommendations

• exempting from health and safety law those self-employed whose work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others
• that HSE should review all its ACoPs. The initial phase of the review should be completed by June 2012 so businesses have certainty about what is planned and when changes can be anticipated
• that HSE undertakes a programme of sector-specific consolidations to be completed by April 2015
• that legislation is changed to give HSE the authority to direct all local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement activity, in order to ensure that it is consistent and targeted towards the most risky workplaces
• that the original intention of the pre-action protocol standard disclosure list is clarified and restated and that regulatory provisions that impose strict liability should be reviewed by June 2013 and either qualified with ‘reasonably practicable’ where strict liability is not absolutely necessary or amended to prevent civil liability from attaching to a breach of those provisions.

Some legal obligations have been identified that appear to have resulted in unnecessary costs to business whilst offering little benefit. These should be revoked, amended or clarified, subject to consultation. It is recommended that the following regulations should be revoked:

• the Notification of Tower Cranes Regulations 2010 and the Notification of Conventional Tower Cranes (Amendment) Regulations 2010 – because the Impact Assessment was not able to identify any quantifiable benefits to health and safety outcomes
• the Celluloid and Cinematograph Film Act 1922 (Exemptions) Regulations 1980 and the Celluloid and Cinematograph Film Act 1922 (Repeals and Modifications) Regulations 1974 that are no longer needed to control health and safety risks
• The Construction (Head Protection) Regulations 1989 that duplicate responsibilities set out in the later Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

It is recommended that the following regulations should be amended, clarified or reviewed:

• the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 should be amended to remove the requirement for HSE to approve the training and qualifications of appointed first-aid personnel. This requirement seems to have little justification provided the training meets a certain standard
• the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and the associated ACoP evaluation should be completed by April 2012 to ensure there is a clearer expression of duties, a reduction of bureaucracy and appropriate guidance for small projects
• the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) and its associated guidance should be amended by the end of 2013 to provide clarity for businesses on how to comply with the requirements
• the requirement for portable appliance testing should be further clarified (including through changes to the wording of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 if necessary) by April 2012 to stop over-compliance and ensure that these messages reach all appropriate stakeholder groups
• the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and the associated guidance should be reviewed by April 2013 to ensure that they do not lead to people going beyond what is either proportionate or beyond what the legislation was originally intended to cover.

Further Recommendations

Clarifying regulatory requirements

In addition to the sector-specific consolidation exercise, it is recommended that:

• HSE commissions research by January 2012 to help decide if the core set of health and safety regulations could be consolidated in such a way that would provide clarity and savings for businesses
• HSE should redesign the information on its website to distinguish between the regulations that impose specific duties on businesses and those that define ‘administrative requirements’ or revoke/amend earlier regulations
• HSE should also continue to help businesses understand what is ‘reasonably practicable’ for specific activities where the evidence demonstrates that they need further advice to comply with the law in a proportionate way.

Application of regulatory requirements

In addition to giving HSE the authority to direct local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement activity, it is also recommended that:

• HSE should also be the Primary Authority for multi-site national organisations
• all those involved should work together with the aim of commencing health and safety prosecutions within three years of an incident occurring.

Improving the understanding of risk

In order to stimulate a wider debate about risk in society and how it should be regulated, Professor Lofstedt recommends the following:

• the House of Lords be invited to set up a Select Committee on risk or establish a sub-committee of the Science and Technology Committee to consider how to engage society in a discussion about risk
• in parallel, the Government asks the Chief Scientific Adviser to convene an expert group aimed at addressing the same challenge. The outcomes of such work need to be disseminated widely across Parliament, policy makers, academics and the public.

Europe

Professor Lofstedt also recommends that the Government works more closely with the European Commission and others to ensure that both new and existing EU health and safety legislation is risk-based and evidence-based. As well as working with the EU on specific regulatory proposals or amendments. Lofstedt recommends:

• all proposed Directives and regulations (and amendments to them) that have a perceived cost to society of more than 100 million Euros should go through an automatic regulatory impact assessment
• those who are responsible for developing the Impact Assessments should be different from those who have drafted the Directives or regulations
• a stronger peer review is introduced through a stronger, more independent EU Impact Assessment Board, or that a separate, independent, powerful regulatory oversight body is established, modelled on the US Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This body should sit within the Secretariat general and would need to be properly resourced.

In addition:

• a European Parliamentary Committee is established to look at risk-based policy making that could assist EU regulators and policymakers to regulate on the basis of risk and scientific evidence
• the UK Government works with the Commission to introduce greater clarity and raise awareness around social partner agreements, and to ensure that Impact Assessments are produced for agreements before they are adopted as a Directive.

Undertaken by Professor Lofstedt of Kings College London, the study was ordered by the coalition earlier this year as part of a package of changes to the health and safety system to support the growth agenda and cut red tape.