Latest News in Health, Safety & the Environment

The HSE expects to charge organisations £133 an hour for inspectors’ work identifying and helping remedy minor breaches. HSE programme director Gordon Macdonald said the provisional hourly rate for so-called fee-for-fault charging will be introduced in April 2012, following a consultation exercise due to start later this month.  MacDonald admitted that cost recovery was controversial,...

People who have fallen foul of barmy bureaucratic decisions for 'health and safety reasons' are being urged get involved in a root and branch review of regulations. Employment Minister Chris Grayling, launching the Red Tape Challenge on health and safety regulations, said the Government would act on public views about which laws needed to be scrapped. He called for the public, businesses and the voluntary...

New official statistics published today show the number of workers killed in Britain last year has increased. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released provisional data for the year April 2010 to March 2011, which shows the number of workers killed was 171 an increase on the previous year, when 147 died - the lowest number on record. The rate of fatal injury is now 0.6 per 100,000 workers,...

The HSE has prosecuted a recycling firm after an ex-serviceman had his lower arm cut off in a baling machine at its plant. The machine had been risk assessed by consultants who had overlooked poor guarding.  The worker tripped on a scaffold tube in front of the machine — a waste compactor – and put his arm out to break the fall. When he reached out, his arm went into the baling chamber,...

Two companies, a director and a sub-contractor have been fined a total of £130,000 for health and safety failings after a construction worker suffered serious burns following an electric shock from an overhead power cable. Self-employed steel erecter Mark Rushbrook, was constructing two new poultry units at Sunny Farm in Swineshead, Bedfordshire. He was using a scissor lift to clad the gable...

The burden on businesses to comply with health and safety laws must be reduced and regulations made more industry-specific, according to the British Chambers of Commerce, as it revealed that 47% of businesses it questioned as part of a recent survey identified health and safety as a burden. The BCC reveals that nearly a fifth (18%) of sole traders identified health and safety regulation as a major...