1. The Quality of Working Life: Promoting a Healthy Agenda
This equipment was donated by Thompsons solicitors
The Quality of Working Life: Promoting a Healthy Agenda
Wednesday 6th February 2008

2. Trends in work-related harm and how to improve them
Professor Phil James
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

3. Themes of presentation
Revitalising improvement targets
Recent trends against targets
Future prospects – worries
Addressing the worries
Improving the operation of the current legal framework
Revising the structure/content of this framework
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

4. Revitalising targets Secure by 2010:
30% reduction in working days lost per 100,000 workers
10% reduction in the incidence rate of fatalities and major injuries
20% reduction in the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

5. Progress against targets
Needs to be recognised that assessing progress against targets is problematic
Annual assessments of progress have also been inconsistent
Taken together, however, progress made is far from reassuring:
On track in respect of target for fatalities and major injuries
Of track in terms of ill health and working day targets
Should be noted that HSE commissioned work suggested that ‘occupational changes’ will lead to a 7.6% reduction over the period
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

6. Progress against targets
Taken together, annual trends against targets indicate no ‘step change’ in health and safety performance
This conclusion exists alongside data indicating that in :
646,000 new cases of work-related ill health
241 workers were killed
28,267 major injuries to employees
274,000 reportable injuries occurred
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

7. Future prospects - worries
Current performance needs to be considered alongside a number of worrying and ongoing trends:
--Outsourcing of work to smaller organisations and on the basis of price-based competition
--Growth of SMEs and smaller workplaces
--Rising work intensity
--Increase in migrant labour
--Widespread workforce vulnerability
--Growing proportion of workforce without access to health and safety representation
--Market pressures in construction industry
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

8. Future prospects - worries
Little cause to assume that trends in work-related harm will improve
Indeed, it would not be unreasonable to see them as potentially likely to worsen
This despite ‘favourable’ changes in the occupational and sectoral composition of employment
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

9. Future prospects - worries
This prognosis reinforced by a number of very questionable policy assumptions:
Routine inspections should only be carried out where there is a clear need
Deliberate non-compliance exists among a very small minority of ‘rogue’ employers
Better compliance can generally be achieved otherwise by education, advice and persuasion
HSE and local authority resources are adequate, cuts in these resources can be addressed through ‘efficiencies’
The current legislative framework is ‘fit for purpose’
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

10. Future prospects - worries
None of the above assumptions seem sound
Existing evidence, for example, suggests that:
Legal compliance is supported by a ‘real threat’ of enforcement action
SMEs respond best to ‘face-to-face’ contact
Trends in work-related harm would seem to place doubt on how far the current legislative framework is ‘fit for purpose’
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

11. Addressing the worries
Challenge the ‘flawed logics’ underlying government and HSC/HSE policy
Seek improvements in both the structure and operation of the current legislative framework
Operationally, the most important tasks would seem to be:
Re-balancing compliance based activity towards inspection and associated enforcement action
Supporting the above by a substantial increase in local authority and HSE inspection resources
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

12. Addressing the worries
Structurally, legal reforms are needed to:
Better regulate such issues as work-related road transport, the operation of ‘high risk’ supply chains and agency working
Increase worker access to health and safety representation and improve the effectiveness of such representation
Require employers to make use of adequate health and safety services
Impose health and safety duties on employers
Increase the range and level of health and safety penalties
The current legislative framework is ‘fit for purpose’
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008

13. Addressing the worries
More generally, given the scale of MSDs and stress-related conditions, a more holistic regulatory approach is needed to the links between work and health
That is an approach which links worker health and safety to the issue of work quality and thereby better addresses such issues as:
Length and distribution of working time
Design of work tasks and processes
Balance between work and wider social life
The current legislative framework is ‘fit for purpose’
Institute of Employment Rights Quality of Working Life Wednesday 6th February 2008