What purpose does the editing serve?

The document is available as a free download pdf https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/lawposter.htm

which in its undoctored form is fully compliant with the regulatory requirement

"Employers are required, by law, to either display the HSE-approved law poster or to provide each of their workers with the equivalent leaflet (available as a free download)."

To modify the leaflet would (imho) contravene the "equivalent" section, even if the modifications were only cosmetic. I would expect the law to worded differently, if this were not the case (for example, "a leaflet with the equivalent information")

Originally Posted by: philleahy

They also add a foot note that they have complied with Crown copyright.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/copyright.htm

Which is where you start to drift in to issues especially with the "Easy Read" version which requires prior written permission from the Office of Public Sector Information

Originally Posted by: johnc

The regulations require either the poster to be displayed or the leaflet to be issued to each employee. The leaflet can be downloaded free of charge but I don't believe that this can then be printed off for distribution to employees as it has the HSE logo on it. This logo is copyright to HSE and it seems that to get around that the company wants to remove it. However then the leaflet is no longer in the designated format. An e-mail to Online@hse.gov.uk will let you know what you can do or can't do.

Thanks I have posted on hse online ( a day of first's) they say allow up to 3 weeks for a reply.

AK - I would have to check but I think that poster or leaflet was born in the latter days of my time with HSE.

Before that the occupier of a factory had to display an abstract of the Factories Act 1961 (Form 1) and usually abstracts of various Regulations made under the Act e.g. the Woodworking Machines Regs F2470 or Highly Flammable Liquids and LPG Regs F2440. If there were people in an office they also had to display an abstract of the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act  1963, OSR1.

I don't remember any of my colleagues thinking that it would be a good idea to include an offence for failing to put up something that usually did nothing other than cover up some part of a factory that had not been repainted in the due period of time in any prosecution report they ever wrote!!

The odd specimen charge to add to the weight of the meat of the prosecution but posters on the wall? The e.g. DM would have a field day.

I didn't get particularly upset when one relatively modern factory had the wrong Woodworking Machines Regs poster on the wall - the one from 1922 rather than 1974. I was far more interested in why someone had lost bits of fingers on a circular saw and the legal requirements had not really changed between 1922 and 1974 - though in reality I was looking at the underlying reasons why someone was doing what they were doing on the saw in the first place - taking me well beyond what the WWM Regs had contemplated.

It would be possible to check whether a single case has been taken for the current poster or leaflet in the last 10 years.

www.hse.gov.uk/prosecutions

Then ADVANCED search by BREACHES rather than default CASES

Then Health and Safety (Information for Employees) Regs whatever date they were made - 1989 I think.

Then whatever the Regulation number is.

Would need to check both the current database which goes back 1 year but not updated until 9 weeks after a case is done and dusted and then the HISTORIC database which goes back to cases 1-10 years old.

My expectation would be a ZERO return.

P 

Edited by user 08 January 2022 17:00:16(UTC)  | Reason: Same typo as 10 minutes ago!

Originally Posted by: johnc

. However I remember an EHO adding failure to fill in the sections in the original poster to a prosecution following an accident. Admittedly he did give the landlord the information to fill in but he didnt do it so it was added in.

Your jokeing? I dispare of ex collegues like that. If i had prosecuted every person who did not fill in the old poster as an inspector i would never have been out of court. I used to carry pre printed sticky lables with me and just pop them on.

”However I remember an EHO adding failure to fill in the sections in the original poster to a prosecution following an accident. Admittedly he did give the landlord the information to fill in, but he didn’t do it, so it was added in.”- that in Kate’s words is “health and safety gone mad!”