Workplace accidents increasingly ignored by UK safety regulator
Employers are increasingly likely to go unpunished after workplace accidents, ministers have been warned, as figures show the number of investigations dropped by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) due to insufficient resources has surged.
A dip in public funding and staff numbers at the HSE over the past decade means victims who suffer an injury at work could miss out on getting justice, the trade union Prospect said.
Figures compiled by Prospect and shared with the Guardian suggested that the number of “mandatory investigations” not undertaken due to a lack of resources rose from just two in 2016-17 to 389 in 2021-22.
Mandatory investigations are meant to take place after a work-related accident that results in a person’s death, or injury such as permanent blinding and serious multiple fractures.
There are five reasons why such incidents do not require investigation, such as where it is “impractical” due to key evidence no longer being available, there are no reasonable ways to avoid a recurrence, or because of “inadequate resources”.
About half of the more than 800 incidents in 2021-22 that triggered a mandatory investigation were dropped because all reasonable precautions had already been taken, according to Prospect’s analysis. But it found a similar proportion were dropped due to insufficient resources.
A combination of funding cuts and a fall in staff numbers at the HSE had contributed to the problem, said Prospect. In a report on the UK’s principal safety regulator, the union said HSE had struggled to recruit and retain inspectors, policy officials and scientific staff.
Some senior HSE staff were now so concerned that they privately believed the body had “shrunk below the critical mass to be an effective regulator”,
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