HSC Annual Report shows commitment to its strategy

HSC press release C017:05 - 7 July 2005

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) today published its 2004/05 Annual Report. The report shows how the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is working towards implementing HSC's Strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond.

The report can be downloaded from: www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/reports/0405/index.htm

The Report shows the progress made against published plans contained in the HSC Business Plan 2004-05 and also provides information about how HSE is managed. It also includes a range of information covering health and safety within HSE, output and performance measures, legislative timetables, HSC Advisory Committee work and statutory and other approval schemes.

HSC Chair Bill Callaghan said: "The endorsement of the Commission's Strategy by the Hampton review was particularly welcome, as was the support for higher penalties. 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."

In order to implement the strategy and help deliver occupational health and safety targets, HSE realigned its work into two key strategic delivery programmes as the main agent for delivery, supported by four enabling programmes: Business Involvement; Worker Involvement; Local Authorities and HSE Working Together; and Enforcement.

Examples of activity include:

• Working in partnership with local authorities, the NHS and DWP we have made further progress towards delivering occupational health, safety and return to work (OHSR) support in the workplace. Local pilots such as the Better Health at Work partnership and Constructing Better Health have begun to provide OHSR support to those who most need it.
• The nine key early deliverables outlined in the Strategy have all been met by the due date.
• HSE achieved savings valued at over £11.6 million for the year, attained through a combination of cash savings and quantifiable added benefits - equivalent to 5.3% of total administrative costs (excluding HSL) of £218.5 million.
• work on the development of stress management standards has been widely welcomed. We aim to establish partnerships with around 100 organisations to build on this experience and help them prevent the incidence of new cases as well as deal successfully with existing ones.

Mr Callaghan added, "While we can point to some significant achievements there are challenges ahead - . we face a major challenge on occupational health . Ill health has accounted for around three quarters of working days lost so we have much work to do to ensure improvements. Our strategy is to continue to work in partnership with others, including industry, unions and local authorities, evidence of which can be found in our Report. Partnership working is also key to helping achieve the challenging targets for improving health and safety, particularly in those areas where progress has not been made.

A final challenge is communicating our core message to seek sensible risk management, vital to removing the myths surrounding the health and safety debate. We will continue make the case for sensible risk control measures that are sensibly applied, a process key to securing compliance with health and safety regulations. "

Notes to editors

1. The HSC Annual Report is a statutory document of record. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires HSC to send a report on its functions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The Annual Report for 2004/05 reports on the work of the HSC and HSE during the year and is based on the plans contained in the HSC Business Plan 2004-2005. The report also includes information on the management of HSE, health and safety in HSE, outputs and performance and the HSE Accounts. Workplace health and safety statistics for 2004/05 will be published in full in the autumn.
2. HSC's Strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond was launched in February 2004 by the then Minister of State Des Browne and Bill Callaghan, Chair of the HSC - www.hse.gov.uk/press/2004/c04007.htm . The Commission published its report on the first year of its Strategy in March 2005 (Workplace Strategy: Moving to Delivery)

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