Mike Taylor – Technical Director at Santia Consulting Ltd has written about the challenges faced by employers when health and safety laws change:
“Ignorance is no defence” or so the saying goes. If an employer is stood in the dock and they mount a defence by saying “nobody told me that the rules had changed”, their chances of success are likely to be slim.
It stands to reason that businesses must keep abreast of the latest legal developments, otherwise they run the risk of being caught out (and in court).
Any business that doesn’t know what it has to do to stay legally compliant should not be surprised of subsequent enforcement action.
To an extent, things were made easier when the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) adopted two common commencement dates for new legislation (in April and October), thereby making any changes less of a surprise. However, employers still need to make the effort (at least twice a year) to find out what changes are planned (or have taken place).
Furthermore, they may also need to seek competent advice to ensure that they are fully abreast of exactly how those changes will impact upon their business.
In this day and age, the problem that employers may face is that there is too much information, rather than not enough. Changes to health and safety legislation are usually subject to public consultation, debate, and subsequent modification long before they become law. This process can generate a lot of data, not all of it helpful.
Therefore, to guide employers through the maze of staying up to date with developments, Mike Taylor and Kizzy Augustin from Pinsett Masons will be speaking at the Legislative Update Webinar organised by Barbour. The 1 hour webinar aims to help employers understand the recent legislation changes and what impact they may have.
Register to listen in to the legislation update webinar on 28 April.
