Self‐regulation and Health and Safety
| Published date | 01 April 1987 |
| Date | 01 April 1987 |
| Pages | 3-8 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055098 |
| Author | Anita Levinson |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Self-regulation
and Health
and Safety
by Anita Levinson
Department of Business Studies, Napier
College, Edinburgh
Introduction
In 1970, a Committee was set up under the chairmanship
of Lord Robens to "review the provision made for the safety
and health of persons in the course of their employ-
ment. . .and to consider whether any changes are
needed.
. ." There were several reasons for this examination
of the system, the five main ones being:
(1) There had never before been a comprehensive review
of the subject.
(2) There was a high national rate of accidents and
disease at work, with the related costs, which was
considered unacceptable by the Labour Government,
trade unions and management.
(3) The wide publicity given to cases of compensation
for diseases such as asbestosis had raised concern
about the insidious and potentially deadly nature of
the long-term risks to which certain groups of
workers might be exposed.
(4) There was a rapid increase in the number of new
chemical substances and mixtures being brought
into use in industrial and commercial processes.
(5) Attitudes and expectations about authority and
decision making had changed. Increasingly, both
employers and workers expected to take an active
part in the making and application of legislation of
this
kind.
At this time, health and safety in British industry were
protected by a complex pattern of regulations and
inspectorates. These provided rules, external to the
individual enterprise, which provided a floor of rights.
The Robens Committee, in its report[1], considered that
there were three main defects in the existing statutory
system:
the first of these was that there was too much law
which had become counter-productive because of its sheer
mass.
There were nine main groups of statutes supported
by nearly 500 subordinate statutory instruments. The
committee maintained that the system encouraged too
much reliance on state regulations and too little on personal
responsibility and voluntary, self-generating effort.
The primary responsibility for doing something about the
present levels of occupational accidents and disease lies with
those who create the risks and those who work with them[1]
(p.
7).
It was suggested that what was needed was a balance
between the regulatory and voluntary elements of the overall
system.
The second defect was that the existing law was intrinsically
unsatisfactory to the extent of being badly structured, too
detailed and littered with obsolete or obsolescent provisions.
There was also a lack of attention to the attitudes, capacities
and performance of people, and the efficiency of the
organisational system with which they worked. Such factors
as the roles of training, joint consultation, the arrangements
for monitoring safety performance or the influence of work
systems and organisation of attitudes and behaviour should
be included in any new legislation.
The third defect was the fragmentation of administrative
jurisdictions which made the task of harmonising, servicing
and up-dating the various statutory provisions extremely
difficult. One aspect of this fragmentation was that some
workplaces, between them employing eight million people,
fell entirely outside the scope of the existing provisions, for
example, schools and hospitals.
The committee proposed that reform of the legislation
should be aimed at creating the conditions for more effective
self-regulation by employers and work people jointly. The
objectives of future policy were to create a more unified and
integrated system to increase the effectiveness of the state's
contribution to health and safety at work, and to develop
more efficient self-regulating systems instead of negative
regulation by external agencies. There must be acceptance
and exercise of appropriate responsibilities at all levels within
industry and commerce, accompanied by more
management initiative and greater involvement of work
people.
Most of those submitting evidence to the committee agreed
on the necessity for a statutory framework within which
there was considerable scope for voluntary effort and self-
help "to secure the provision of good facilities and working
conditions above the minima prescribed" — mostly through
safety committees and safety agreements.
The resulting 1974 Health and Safety at Work etc Act
(HASAWA) and the Safety Representative and Safety
ER 9,4 • 1987 3
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