So on the same day (17th Feb) we see the announcement of Peter Baker's appointment as Chief Inspector of Buildings from within the HSE Construction News runs a very alarming story of a sub-contractor attempting to raise issues with HSE and being re-buffed because they did not originate from a "current employee".

I must admit to having received a similar brush off when attempting to raise concern over Covid spray tunnels.

Is this the new normal for HSE investigation?

Roundtuit - it doesn't say so on the HSE webpage devoted to dealing with how to make a complaint, but my understanding is that HSE policy is that now complaints are not generally investigated unless more than one employee has complained.

So, that means that any complaint from a member of the public should be ignored, similarly your scenario about a third party such as a subbie.

When I were a lad and times in HSE were strained but not so much as they are today, we encouraged the good contractors to shop the bad guys. Not particularly actively, but if one complained that they were getting attention that might be better spent on those who didn't even try to comply, the party line was that they were entitled to fair competition.

At least two of my early prosecutions would not have happened if I had not investigated complaints that would be unlikely to be investigated under what appear to be the current HSE rules.

Unsurprisingly some are questioning the logic of those rules.