Introduction

• The new Strategy
• Targets
• The Strategic Programmes
• Business improvement and efficiency
• Business risk management
• Allocating resources
• Reporting

The new Strategy

1. The Health and Safety Commission's Strategy for Workplace Health and Safety in Great Britain to 2010 and Beyond provides a clear sense of direction for HSC, HSE, local authorities (LAs) and others in the health and safety system. It consists of four strategic themes (and key points to support them), plus some new and continuing aims.

Themes

1. Developing closer partnerships:
   • Working with and through others
   • HSE and local authorities working together
   • Rising to the challenge of occupational health
2. Helping people to benefit from effective health and safety management and a sensible health and safety culture:
   • Understanding the benefits of health and safety
   • Involving the workforce
   • Providing accessible advice and support
3. Focusing on our core business and the right interventions where we are best placed to reduce workplace injury and ill health:
   • Being clear about our priorities
   • Developing an interventions strategy
   • Continuing to enforce where appropriate
4. Communicating the vision:
   • Communicating effectively

Continuing

• Protect people by providing information and advice
• Promoting and assuring a goal-setting system of regulation
• Undertaking and encouraging research and enforcing the law where necessary
• Influence organisations to embrace high standards of health and safety and to recognise the social and economic benefits
• Work with business to prevent catastrophic failures in major hazard industries
• Seek to optimise the use of resources to deliver our mission and vision

New

• Develop new ways to establish and maintain an effective health and safety culture in a changing economy, so that all employers take their responsibilities seriously, the workforce is fully involved and risks are properly managed.
• Do more to address the new and emerging work-related health issues
• Achieve higher levels of recognition and respect for health and safety as an integral part of a modern, competitive business and public sector and as a contribution to social justice and inclusion.
• Exemplify public sector best practice in managing our resources.

The Health and Safety Commission's new role

2. The Strategy will require both the Commission and the Executive to change the way in which they work. During 2004/05, the Commissioners will:

• Take a more active role in HSE's management committees;
• Engage and communicate with our stakeholders; and
• Assume 'ownership' of the Strategic Programmes.

3. These changes will:

• Enable HSC to assess HSE's business performance more fully against its strategic objectives;
• Free up HSC time to act in its strategic capacity; and
• Make HSC more visible and accessible to our stakeholders.

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Targets

4. Delivering the Government's Revitalising Health and Safety (RHS) targets is central to the Strategy. These are to achieve by 2010:

• A 30% reduction in the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers from work-related injury and ill health;
• A 10% reduction in the incidence rate of fatal and major injury accidents; and
• A 20% reduction in the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health.

Based on statistics from 2000 as a baseline year.

5. As part of the 2004 Spending Review, HSE has proposed a new Public Service Agreement (PSA) to:

Improve health and safety outcomes in Great Britain by 2008, through progressive improvement in the control of risks from the workplace.

6. To monitor progress against the PSA, HSE will analyse movement in a number of indicators:

• The RHS indicators (above);
• Precursor incidents in the key major hazard industries;
• Measures of the control of risks within organisations and across the workforce.

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The Strategic Programmes

7. To deliver the PSA and the RHS targets, HSE will work with local authorities (LAs) on five Strategic Programmes of work. These are focused on key areas highlighted by the Strategy:

• Priority industry sectors;
• Priority health and safety hazards;
• Major hazards industries;
• Working better with local authorities;
• Developing partnerships to improve provision of occupational health and safety.

8. This plan contains the Strategic Programme's targets and milestones for 2004/05. Strategic Programme Directors will report on their progress to HSE's new Delivery Board.

Business improvement and efficiency

9. Improving the way HSE carries out it work and functions is at the heart of delivering the HSC's Strategy. The newly created Business Improvement and Efficiency Board (BIEB) will coordinate and manage all of HSE's business improvement (BI) effort by:

• Setting priorities;
• Approving BI proposals that require discretionary investment; and
• Challenging activities that lack tangible outcomes or real organisational (and ultimately, societal) benefits.

10. From 2004/5, all of HSE's significant improvement effort will come under the BI banner and be ultimately accountable to BIEB. This will bring together a number of complementary work streams that were previously handled separately, such as deriving benefits from the change programme that was completed last year and from the review of corporate support services.

11. BIEB's first task will be to create and drive through a coherent improvement programme. This programme will consist of work streams looking at operational transformation, support functions and organisation-wide change. Specific improvements planned for 2004/05 include:

• Centralising and streamlining support services (e.g. IT, human resources and supporting certain operational and management information streams within Operations Group);
• Streamlining HSE's estates by reducing London based posts, rationalising other parts of the estate and constructing a new purpose-built headquarters to consolidate the accommodation required on Merseyside;
• Developing procurement and contract management strategies in order to realise savings across HSE;
• Providing more cost effective communications services and materials;
• Strengthening programme and project working and benefits management to optimise our delivery;
• Replacing numerous IT operational systems across Operations Group with a single operational IT system - COIN;
• Piloting approaches for home and flexible working, to spend less overall on office accommodation and achieve a better work-homelife balance for our staff.

12. BIEB will also ensure that HSE's approach to BI meets challenges and responds to government-wide initiatives, such as Sir Peter Gershon's Efficiency Review and the Lyons Review on London and South East based staffing. For further information on HSE's efficiency programme see paragraphs 168 - 169

Business risk management

13. Business risk management supports delivery of HSC/E's aims. The HSE Board will continue to review the corporate risk register periodically, and to consider emerging key threats to delivery (with proposed measures to manage risks).

14. The Board has recently adopted a business risk management framework. This strategic statement sets out HSE's overall approach to risk management and defines roles and responsibilities. This will help inform further development of business risk management across HSE. In April 2004, the HSE Audit Committee agreed a business risk management improvement plan for 2004-05.

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Allocating resources

15. HSE's gross budget for 2004/05 is £273million. We spend over three quarters of this on staff and related (administration) costs. The distribution of HSE's resource across the Strategic Programmes and 'core' work is shown below. Further information on HSE's budget and resources is given in paragraphs 161 - 167.

Long description available

HSE's imperative duties and support activities

16. This element of HSE's work includes all essential activities, necessary to deliver the HSC's function and targets. There are three broad areas:

1. Responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, other legislation, and to Ministers.

   These essential functions support delivery of targets but are not managed as a part of HSE's Strategic Programmes of work. They include:

   • Investigation activity;
   • Enforcement activity;
   • Drafting and modernising legislation;
   • Providing guidance, information and advice;
   • Work in topical areas, such as shellfish harvesting and fairground inspection.

   Undertaking investigations and enforcement activity, although classified as responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, contribute to both the RHS targets and to the Strategic Programmes.

   ii. Activities that enable delivery of the targets.

   These essential functions underpin delivery of the targets by the provision of essential intelligence and evidence across all of HSE's work. They include:

   • Enabling functions, such as legal, economic or statistical advice, evaluation and horizon scanning;
   • Undertaking research into areas not directly contributing to HSE's Strategic Programmes of work. (Making suitable arrangements for undertaking research is also a duty under the Health and safety at Work etc Act 1974.)

   iii. Business Infrastructure and Corporate Services

   • Provision of services essential to HSE's business such as accommodation, telephone systems and IT provision and support;
   • Corporate services, such as personnel, planning and procurement.

   These functions, though essential, are the focus of projects that either aim to centralise and streamline services, or invest to save money and free up resources to be redirected into 'front-line' activity. For further information see paragraph 11 above.

17. HSE will review how it has allocated its resources during 2004/05 to:

• Maximise the prospects of delivery of the vision, aims and targets; and
• Position itself better in light of HSC's Spending Review settlement for the years up to 2007/08 (expected in July 2004).

18. Over the period of the 2001-04 Strategic Plan, HSE directed increasing amounts of its resources towards delivering the Spending Review 2000 PSA target. We will continue this process over the coming years, investing the maximum possible resources into our Strategic Programmes, with a view to delivering the new PSA and the Revitalising Health and Safety targets.

Reporting

19. HSC/E will report progress against the first year of the Strategy (and the targets) in the 2004/05 Annual Report. Information on our progress will be available from the HSE website.