Hi everyone,

Just doing some background reading and I revisited 2(3) of HSWA which requires all employers to have a written health and policy. I was surprised that there is no mention of "five or more employees" in the text. I also checked the management Regulations in relation to risk assessment, and again there's no mention of "five or more employees". I've asked a colleague where this qualification comes from and she is also as a loss.

I'm not disputing it's the truth, but I'm now really curious. Who said it only applies to 5 or more employees?

Can anyone educate me?

Cheers all.

Will

SI 1584 / 1975

Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 3242

drpopikoff

Apparently David Cameron and a bunch of illustrious business leaders are meeting to cut the 'Red Tape' burden in Brussels next week. The business leaders have produced a report which indicates that £2Billion can be saved by getting rid of 'burdensome' health and safety requirements, including:

'Scrapping the requirement for all SMEs (small and medium enterprises), irrespective of their business, to keep written health and safety assessments'

It appears the Government/business leaders could not find the requirement either!

Cheers.

Nigel

I knew there was a more formal and legislative reason - I just couldn't remember it - time for home - A.

SME are defined as any business with upto 250 employees- so not so small.

originally its to do with servants and those having servants stopped them being included as the gentry did not want to be bothered with such things so those with 5 or less servants were not included e.g. a servant had no rights under HSWA74

Has anyone actually read the so called "report" ?

https://www.gov.uk/gover...ce-report-15-October.pdf

Unfortunately, the report is NOT based on any serious/in-depth study that can be supported by factual data, but soundbites from surveys and for health & safety, the reference to requirements for written health & safety assessments is to a single small employers organisation even when the transposition of the framework directive into GB law does not require written risk assessments of employing less than 5 persons.

The fact that SME's keep written assessments even if employing less than 5 has very little, in fact nothing to do with EU legislation, but :-
1) our own adversarial system of civil claims, now being tightened
2) supply chain pressure for compliance with client requirements-most large organisations certificated to HSEQ Management Systems will generally require their suppliers to provide documented evidence
3) the health & safety industry itself-ranging from suppliers of signs, software, consultants(not all) etc

Rather than aiming for lower ( I resisted using the term lowest) common standard, it would be better to require emerging economies such as the BRIC and other countries to improve their own standards within a fixed time-scale--as required by the ILO Health & Safety, Chemicals , Employment and other CONVENTIONS that in effect are international law, to have a more level playing field.

It is good to see that IOSH has issued a robust response.
http://www.iosh.co.uk/ne...d_tape_report_wrong.aspx

Perhaps, all likeminded Health & Safety Organisations ( such as BSC, ROSPA, IIRSM and others) should jointly respond .

To supplement AK's posting....

European Commission definitions of SME include

Medium sized <250 (definitely not small - is DC seriously advocating that an engineering company employing 200 should not need written risk assessments?)

Small <50 would include many e.g. roofing contractors who need to manage significant risks.

Micro <10

It's the nasty numpty party in full swing!