The Government’s concern with the complexity and cost of complying with health and safety regulations, particularly for the small business sector, has led to a review of how changes may be made to health and safety compliance in order to make it less burdensome.
Among the recommendations made of relevance to small businesses are:
- Insurance companies should stop insisting on health and safety consultants being employed to carry out risk assessments where there is a ‘low-risk’ environment;
- Health and safety consultants are to be ‘professionalised’, with a register of qualified consultants;
- The Health and Safety Executive should give clear guidance targeted at small and medium-sized businesses;
- The current health and safety legislation should be consolidated into a single set of accessible regulations; and
- The time period for reporting accidents should be extended to seven days.