The Health & Safety Commission (HSC) recently published its Annual Report on 7 July 2005.

Apart from the standard reporting on the HSC's and Health & Safety Executive's (HSE) activities for the year 2004/2005 this report also shows how the HSE is working towards implementing the HSC's Strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond.
The Strategy was launched in February 2004 and set new priorities for the HSE. A key feature of this document is delivering the national targets for health and safety launched by the Government and HSC in June 2000.
The HSE has undergone significant internal change in order to position itself to best achieve the Strategy's targets. Resources have been redirected to areas that could have the biggest impact on its targets. This includes resources allocated for interventions.
Bill Callaghan, Chair of the HSC, said: We must continue to seek and maintain the right balance of enforcement and advice. This year has also seen the start of consultation with our stakeholders on how to best place our intervention resources. Leading from this we hope to achieve a more efficient and effective targeted interventions programme.”
The strategy recognises that enforcement is an effective means of securing compliance and promoting self-compliance. The HSE and Local Authorities (which still retain responsibility for enforcing health and safety law in over a million premises and in relation to more than 12 million employees) both recognise that their resources are limited and need to be targeted to where they can have the most impact.
In terms of day to day enforcement the report notes signs that more Local Authorities are adopting the “topic-based” approach to inspection. In practice this should mean that regulators ensure that their interventions are driven by assessments of risk.
This autumn will see the publication of the HSE's Health and Safety Offences and Penalties Report – the HSE's annual report on its enforcement action. This will be a further chance to assess how the HSE's approach to enforcement has changed.
The report continues to highlight the extensive problem of work-related stress. At over 13 million days a year, work-related stress is the biggest occupational cause of working days lost through injury or ill health. With an average of 29 days lost per case, this costs society about £3.7billion a year. In 2001/02 over half a million individuals in Britain experienced work-related stress at levels that made them ill.

For information on Health and Safety Legislation Swindon look at the website for these Swindon Solicitors.