A health and safety campaign group has launched a scathing attack on the new HSE strategy, describing it as a “severe disappointment”.
Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) believes the strategy, launched on 3 June, offers “nothing strong enough to show us that justice will prevail”. In particular, it is dismayed that the strategy’s emphasis on ‘strong leadership’ does not include a call for legal health and safety duties on directors.
It also believes that without considerable investment to increase the HSE’s resources, the strategy is unlikely to have the necessary teeth behind it to succeed. A spokesperson elaborated: “Employers should, of course, behave in a morally-acceptable way, but as we have seen from the current meltdown in the financial sector and MPs expenses, merely relying on people to behave with moral integrity is a recipe for utter disaster.
“Deregulation, light-touch regulation and self-relation have all proved inadequate, and applying them to health and safety continues to put us all at risk.”
It is backed by the Hazards Campaign, which also voiced its anger at the strategy’s lack of recommendation regarding new rights for safety reps. Its spokesperson, Hilda Palmer, added: “Without a massive injection of resources and real political will to tackle the many non-compliant and criminally negligent employers, it is hard to see how more voluntarism can have any real impact. The HSE has already gone soft on enforcement and there is a massive lack of deterrence, as inspections, investigations of injuries, enforcement notices and prosecutions are all down.”
Summing up its feelings on the strategy, the FACK spokesperson said: “FACK feels this strategy is mostly empty words that won’t save others from the heartache and destroyed lives we now live.
“Every death is a tragedy to every family but when you know that death was due to an employer not bothering to do things properly, that it was totally avoidable, and that those responsible will not be held properly accountable by the authorities charged with enforcing health and safety, it adds unimaginable to our pain and suffering and prevents us getting on with our lives.”
