Simon Not surprised either way. In ancient times when I worked for HSE, in the West of Scotland, we preselected which sites to visit during blitz campaigns in drive past. If we couldn't see anything wrong from outside the site - no visit. Result - prohibition notices at 50% of the sites visited. Maximum publicity and likely impact. Similar considerations at national or local level could account for the changing %s over the last four years - there are too many possible variables to tell us whether these %s indicate improvement or not. The big jump in number of sites visited this year probably indicates smaller proportion of sites visited by inspectors with significant experience in construction - so could be more reluctant to issue notices. Further overall numbers too small to assess whether a couple of percentage reduction in % sites served notice would be statistically significant even if all else equal.

No, not really surprised, but still a shocking indictment of safety in construction by SMEs. Companies cut corners to save money - simples. The HSE have been conducting annual construction site blitz on mostly small contractors for a number of years now. Each year there are similar incidences of breaches ie PNs and INs. Very few ever get prosecuted. That I suggest is the main reason why we see a repeat exercise each year illustrating contempt for h&s law.