BILL CALLAGHAN WELCOMES WORKER SAFETY ADVISOR CHALLENGE FUND

HSC press release C052:03 - 2 October 2003

The creation of a new Worker Safety Adviser (WSA) Challenge Fund was warmly welcomed today by Bill Callaghan, Chair of the Health and Safety Commission.

The Fund, announced by Andrew Smith, Secretary of State for Department for Work and Pensions, will help bring improved health and safety to small and medium sized firms.

Mr Callaghan said: "Increasing worker involvement has been shown to improve health and safety records and is a key part of our strategy.

"I very much welcome this announcement, which shows the Government's continued commitment to Health and Safety at Work. It also recognises the benefits that a genuine partnership of employers and workers can bring in terms of improved health and safety."

Notes to editors

1. In 2000 the HSC Chair agreed with Ministers a series of measures to increase employee involvement. The WSA pilot was one measure and ran from February 2002 until evaluation concluded in April 2003. The report of the pilot was published on 15 September (HSC Press Release C045:03 can be found on the HSE website).

2. The basis of the pilot was to use people skilled in promoting employee consultation on health and safety (mainly union safety representatives working in large businesses) to enter small businesses under voluntary arrangements and enable workplace partnerships to be created.

3. The pilot deployed nine WSAs in four English regions, Scotland and Wales for the voluntary, hospitality, engineering and construction sectors over nine months. 88 employers voluntarily participated in the Pilot and were predominately small, two thirds having less than 25 employees. These are the type of organisations HSE considered would benefit most from external support.

4. Trade unions heavily involved were: Unison, T&G, Amicus, and UCATT. Other trade unions may come forward with the announcement by Andrew Smith - in particular USDAW, the union with strong links in Retail.

5. Employers and workers were surveyed and overall the report states:

The involvement of WSAs has led to improvements in small non-unionised workplace approach to health and safety. Notably these have included increasing internal communication and consultation on health and safety matters.

The report shows the WSA Pilot successfully met the objectives of increasing employee consultation and raising health and safety standards.

75% of employers made changes to their approach to H & S.
Nearly 70% of employees noted increased discussion on H & S.
43% of employers possibly (10% definitely) willing to contribute towards the cost of a WSA.

6. HSC has been asked by Ministers to develop proposals for the roll out of the WSA Challenge Fund. The construction, voluntary and retail sectors are likely to be the areas where the work of the WSAs are initially focussed.

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