Facilities Management Association

 

David Cameron has announced the appointment of the Rt Hon Lord Young of Graffham as Adviser to the Prime Minister on health and safety law and practice.

 

Lord Young will undertake a Whitehall-wide review into the 'application and perception' of health and safety laws and 'the growth of the compensation culture'.  

 

He is expected to report to the Prime Minister in the summer.

 

Commenting on the review, David Cameron said:

 

“I’m very pleased that Lord Young has agreed to lead this important review. The rise of the compensation culture over the last ten years is a real concern, as is the way health and safety rules are sometimes applied.

 

“We need a sensible new approach that makes clear these laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm businesses with red tape. I look forward to receiving Lord Young’s recommendations on how we can best achieve that.”

 

Said Lord Young:

 

“Health and safety regulation is essential in many industries but may well have been applied too generally and have become an unnecessary burden on firms, but also community organisations and public services.”

 

He added:

 

“I hope my review will reintroduce an element of common sense and focus the regulation where it is most needed. We need a system that is proportionate and not bureaucratic.”

 

TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, criticised the move:

 

“Businesses are responsible for a working culture that injures a quarter of a million workers every year and makes a further half a million employees ill. The review should be investigating this instead.

 

“Rather than focusing solely on the 'needs of business', the Government should protect workers by increasing inspections and enforcement action against employers who put their staff at risk by ignoring existing laws, as well as introducing a legal duty on directors to protect their workers.”

However, others have given the review cautious approval. Richard Jones, Policy and Technical Director at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), welcomed this “focus on educating people about what’s really required”.

 

 

Registration with the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will be halted to allow the Government to remodel the scheme "back to proportionate, common sense levels,” the Government has announced.

 

Voluntary registration with the VBS for new employees and job-movers working or volunteering with children and vulnerable adults was due to start on 26 July. This registration has now been stopped.

 

The Government says it “recognises that many businesses, community groups and individuals see the current scheme as disproportionate and overly burdensome, and that it unduly infringes on civil liberties”.

 

"The safety of children and vulnerable adults is of paramount importance to the new Government,” said Home Secretary, Theresa May. "However, it is also vital that we take a measured approach in these matters. We’ve listened to the criticisms and will respond with a scheme that has been fundamentally remodelled.”

 

 

Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has announced an action plan to bring an end to what the Government says is “the excessive regulation that is stifling business growth”.

 

Cable detailed the first phase of the Coalition Government’s action plan to reduce regulation following the Prime Minister’s commitment to “re-open Britain for business”.

 

He pledged to open a new Cabinet 'Star Chamber' that will lead the Government’s drive to reduce regulation. This Reducing Regulation Committee will be chaired by the Business Secretary and will enforce a new approach to new laws and regulations, aiming to ensure that their costs are being properly addressed across the entire British economy.

 

Cable also announced an immediate review of all regulation in the pipeline for implementation which has been inherited from the last Government.

A new 'challenge group' will also be established, tasked with coming up with innovative approaches to achieving social and environmental goals in a non-regulatory way. This team would work with experts including Richard Thaler, the US behavioural economist.

 

The Business Secretary also said he will introduce a new approach that will control and reduce the burden of regulation, including a 'one-in, one-out' approach which would aim to ensure that new regulatory burdens on business are only brought in when reductions can be made to existing regulation. 

 

Cable said:

 

“The deluge of new regulations has been choking off enterprise for too long. We must move away from the view that the only way to solve problems is to regulate.

 

“The Government has wide-ranging social and ecological goals including protecting consumers and protecting the environment. This requires increased social responsibility on the part of businesses and individuals.”

 

Meanwhile, businesses are being urged to contribute to a new risk-based approach to national regulations, which aims to help reduce the burden on them and benefit consumer protection at the same time.

 

The call came from the Local Better Regulation Office (LBRO), the public body tasked with refreshing the national enforcement priorities in England, and is backed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

 

 

A new standard – PAS 2060 Specification for the demonstration of carbon neutrality – has been published by the British Standards Institute (BSI).  It allows organisations to ensure their carbon neutrality claims are correct and gain customers' confidence.

 

PAS 2060 has been developed in cooperation with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and businesses such as Marks & Spencer, Eurostar and the Cooperative. PAS 2060 aims to help to restore consumers’ confidence in the credibility of carbon neutrality claims and encourage action on climate change.