The HSE’s annual report for the financial year 2020 to 2021 notes that, from early 2020 it has been dealing with the new high risk of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In response, since late March 2020 the HSE says it has carried out a programme of interventions to check how businesses are implementing measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19. It has employed a ‘blended approach’, including virtual inspections (using IT platforms), spot checks carried out by telephone call, and traditional on-site visits and responding to concerns.
The report says the HSE has continued to amplify this through its ‘COVID-Secure’ campaign, a blended, ‘ONE HSE’ approach of regulatory interventions, mass market or targeted communications, and stakeholder/partnership engagement that brings together experts from across the organisation. Using existing resources and the additional £14.2m funding made available in May 2020, HSE aided the safe return to work and ensured employers are managing risks posed by COVID-19 by carrying out compliance spot checks to ensure COVID protocols on social distancing and infection control measures were being adhered to.
Where businesses are not managing risks to people’s safety or health, the HSE says it secures improvements in line with its enforcement policy and enforcement management model. Through proportionate enforcement action, it seeks to prevent harm, secure sustained improvement in the management of health and safety risk and hold people to account when they fail to meet their obligations to protect people. Where appropriate, the HSE says it prosecutes those who behave in a reckless way or where there has been a serious breach of duty.
The report includes a synopsis of work to support government initiatives in tackling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the workplace and performance against the key strategic themes as outlined in our 2020/21 Business Plan:
Some example figures of HSE’s performance 2020/21 include:
Enforcement action
Sustainability improvements
Reductions have been made in:
Business plan delivery
Click here to view the Health and Safety Executive annual report and accounts 2020 to 2021.
