[ Focus: Brexit special ]
By PAUL REEVE, ECA Director of Business Services
JOE GOUGH / SHUTTERSTOCK
Time for a pragmatic view of UK health and safety law
limited. Depending on our exit from the EU, the UK may – for the first time ever – be able to conduct an unfettered review of these Regulations. The recently introduced duties on domestic clients are already being touted as a prime target. But while CDM is vitally important, there is a raft of other EU-based health and safety law that also affects our sector. Consider the following: The TMCSD (leading to CDM) is just one of nearly 20 ‘daughter’ directives to the 1992 Framework Directive on Safety and Health at Work, and all of these apply to the UK. The Framework Directive is crucially important: it led directly to the UK’s Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 – a mainstay of UK health and safety law. The 1999 Regulations are the source of the (sometimes lamented) health and safety questions in PAS 91 (BSI’s construction PQQ standard) and other PQQ questionnaires, such as those deployed by members of Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) including CHAS and Constructionline. The other EU daughter directives have led to an array of UK health and safety regulations covering workplace issues ranging from Noise at Work, to
What effect will Brexit have on our sector in the next five years on health and safety policy and legislation? Very positive Slightly negative
Slightly positive Very negative
10% 3%
No change Don’t know
13%
LOCO / SHUTTERSTOCK
6%
W
hile the UK generally has an excellent safety record, health and safety law has long attracted attention from deregulatory UK governments. However, the bulk of our health and safety law is based on EU directives introduced since the early 1990s, and as a result it has withstood numerous government reviews. yet, as we edge forward towards a still uncertain type of Brexit, it seems only a matter of time before the deregulators run the rule over the regulations again. Any UK regulatory freedom, post-Brexit, will depend on what, if any, type of deal we strike with
26 ECA Today Winter 2016
22% About the author Paul Reeve is director of business and external affairs at the Electrical Contractors’ Association, and a chartered Fellow of IOSH.
the EU. It could well be that Brussels will require us to keep up with many of the health and safety directives, as part of a comprehensive trade deal. However, other ‘harder’ Brexit scenarios would allow Whitehall much more deregulatory headroom. The building engineering services sector is very broad, covering construction but also wider services and maintenance. In construction, the legislative debate is often quite insular, focussing on what’s happening to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM). yet CDM is entirely based on the EU’s ‘Temporary or Mobile Construction Sites’ Directive 1992 (TMCSD), which means that opportunities for change have been
46% Source: ECA/BESA/SELECT Brexit survey, August-September 2016
Work at Height, and even Electromagnetic Fields. And all this before we even get to the Working Time Directive, which – lest we forget – was (and still is) framed by the European Commission as a health and safety directive. (In our recent Brexit survey of ECA, BESA and SELECT member companies, the rules that members most wanted to get UK control over involved employment law, rather than health and safety.) Over the last 20 years, the safety performance of mainstream construction - along with building maintenance and services activity - has improved significantly. It has been a difficult path (notably in construction), but the legal backdrop to these improvements has been the UK’s own (ground breaking) HSW Act 1974 - and much of the EUbased health and safety legislation above. Both have underpinned our health and safety efforts to date including the pluses and minuses. On the plus side, we can point with considerable pride (though never complacency) to tremendous improvements in the safety and welfare of those who work in our own sector. On the minus side, many member companies point to the growth of excessive health and safety paperwork and other costly- and not always cost effective-requirements. In a highly respected, independent 2011 review of UK health and safety law, Professor Ragnar Löfstedt concluded that ‘many requirements that originate from the EU contribute to improved (UK) health and safety outcomes’. In short, EU safety rules aren’t all bad. Interestingly, the principles behind many of the EU’s health and safety laws originated in the UK. And yes, risk assessments were one of them. Going forward, we need to take a pragmatic view of what we actually want from UK health and safety law, while taking advantage of any opportunities for improvement that come our way. But when it comes to reviewing our health and safety law and guidance, we must avoid accidentally throwing out ‘what works’.
Winter 2016 ECA Today 27