The effective enforcement of workplace health
standards is being undermined by government cost-cutting measures packaged as
recession-busting cost-benefit calculations, a new independent report has concluded.
Regulating Scotland, a
detailed Stirling University
analysis of environmental and workplace health and safety enforcement trends,
warns that ideology rather than evidence is behind cuts in enforcement agencies
including the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
It says this has led to a dramatic decrease in official inspections and
enforcement of both environmental and workplace safety standards. The report
warns that workplace health and safety inspections across the UK
are now so infrequent it is unlikely most workers will ever encounter an
inspector in a working lifetime. It is also critical of 'better regulation'
policies, which it says have pulled the teeth of the watchdogs charged with
protecting workers, communities and the environment. The report notes that the
'burdens on business' case used to justify the hands-off deregulatory approach
is based on 'skewed' cost-benefit calculations that fail to factor in the much
greater financial benefits of proper enforcement of regulations. Report author
Professor Andrew Watterson said: 'Failure to act now to improve poor regulation
and enforcement elevates a spurious business costs argument above a real and
substantial cost to human health, society and the public purse.' The report
warns that a lack of official oversight of safety and environmental standards
could lead to a process of 'regulatory capture', where largely absent and
resource-starved enforcing agencies are reliant on self-regulation by
companies, trusted to monitor and report on their own performance. It says this
process was implicated in the Piper Alpha and Deepwater Horizon disasters.
