Basically my thoughts. Right now the HSE are trying to consolidate the parts of COSHH relating to bioagents, the Genetically Modified Organisms regs( that’s a specialised piece of legislation!) and the Specific Animal Pathogens Order (which deals with animal diseases such as foot and mouth and rabies). Looking after H&S in a laboratory I have been monitoring this process for about two years. They say it will be ready next year in April. The draft guidance/ACoP they looked at last year was one of the most complex documents I have ever seen and I hope they will try to simplify it. If it takes them this long to sort out three similar pieces of legislation how long would it take them to merge all the other stuff and how will they simplify it and the guidance/ACOP? When people talk about simplification what a lot of them really mean is going back to the prescriptive approach of yesterday,( ie getting away from risk assessment) when all you have to is complete a set of actions written in the regulations and it did not matter what the outcome was as long as you ticked the boxes.

I am lead to believe that for every 1 new H&S law that has come in over the last 10 years there has been ~50 [yes 50] environmental laws introduced [and I have qualifications etc. and advise in that area so I can believe it] As an exercise I advise that people go through / investigate the process of opening a business and they will soon realise that H&S law is negligible if felt at all during the process and environmental and fire laws are not much different to H&S The whole thing is hype and undertaken to keep the average persons eyes on a ball that is not the real problem ball at all

I am with the others, there are a lot of regulations to comply with, some could be consolidated (eg LOLER and PUWER) but most are stand alone dealing with specific hazards. I also think there are a lot of tax and accounting laws to comply with, but there is no use complaining about it - you will not get any sympathy from the HRMC. I do believe that regulations could be written in a more user friendly format and some guidance is overly complex and prescriptive. That is just my personal opinion of course. However, that is not a good excuse to assume that health and safety regulations are an unnecessary burden on the employer. I could accept some proportionality for the self employed and small businesses and thereby making it less onerous, on the proviso that enforcement was tougher and the courts handed out meaningful penalties for offenders.