Posted By Descarte
As we all know you can use statistics to prove anything, hopefully however as a government body they use methods developed to a certain standards and manipulation through selcetive questioning or data collection would not effect the outcomes.
Is this the case? I suggest you read "Hazards" publication which uses the freedom of information act to gain all this info and put its own spin on it, often to the detriment of the HSE, and must as well be taken with a pinch of salt.
"HSE, though, says it is outcomes that count. Responding to the Hazards report in May, an HSE spokesperson said: “The most important question is whether what we’re doing is having the right effect. And the statistics show that it is. The rate of fatalities is at the lowest ever. The rate of major injuries is on the way down. And in the past five years, new cases of ill-health have fallen between 8-12 per cent.”
But the figures do not in fact support this conclusion. Figures published by HSE in August 2006 show that there was a record low number of workplace fatalities in 2004/05, when 223 deaths were recorded, and this fell still further in 2005/06 to 212 worker deaths. But the combined reported “fatal and major” injuries rate, a more reliable indicator based on tens of thousands of reported cases each year, places HSE’s conclusion in serious doubt. Since HSE introduced it its new strategy in 2003/04, Britain has seen a leap in fatal and major injury rates. In the three years 2000/01 to 2002/03, the reported fatal and major injuries rate for employees hovered around the 111 injuries per 100,000 workers mark. In 2003/04 it broke 121. HSE provisional figures for 2004/05 put it at above 118."
"HSE’s claims on occupational ill-health reduction are even more suspect, particularly claims relying on Labour Force Survey (LFS) figures. New research from HSE adds to other evidence undermining these LFS estimates. The Workplace Health and Safety Survey (WHASS), conducted between August and December 2005 and published in May 2006, surveyed 10,016 workers. (5) It suggested a level of work-related ill-health of 9,800 cases per 100,000 workers, more than double that estimated by the LFS. Injuries requiring four or more days absence from work were 40 per cent higher, at 1,700 per 100,000 employees compared to LFS’s 1,200.
The WHASS report says the 26 per cent response rate could have introduced “response bias” leading to an over-estimation of the problem. However WHASS is only the latest of a string of recent reports suggesting the LFS figures, which HSE uses as the benchmark for its occupational health estimates and strategy evaluation, grossly under-estimate most causes of work-related ill-health (Hazards 94) and omit entire categories of occupational disease (Hazards 92), discrediting HSE’s baseline figures for health improvements."