Top safety tips can lead to healthy savings

Aug 8 2008 By Greig Cameron

Better advice for Scotland's small businesses can cut costs by £8m

Small and low risk businesses in Scotland could save more than £8million a year with better advice and support on health and safety.

A report published this week by the Better Regulation Executive examined how health and safety regulation affects businesses.

It sets out recommendations to save time and money, while improving working environments and general understanding of health and safety.

The recommendations include:

Improved web-based and telephone support, offering advice as well as information, for low risk businesses.

Better advice to help small businesses know when to buy in the help of consultants for health and safety advice.

Maximising the limited resources of HSE and local authority inspectors, making inspection and enforcement more efficient, focusing on higher risk workplaces.

Developing a new, single assurance scheme so small businesses can have just one inspection to deal with a range of requirements, including health and safety, fire and food safety regulations.

Improving the perception and understanding of health and safety issues.

The average company spends around 20 hours a year or more than £350 on administration meeting health and safety requirements. It is estimated Scotland's 118,500 low risk businesses currently spend in excess of £41m in meeting these administrative costs.

Secretary of State for Business John Hutton said: "The UK has one of the best workplace safety records in the world, with fatalities and injuries falling more than 70 per cent in the last 30 years. But the public and business community's perception of health and safety regulation is poor.

"Introducing simple steps, such as making information more easily available and getting better advice to firms that need it, will help save time and money for UK business. Cutting the amount of paperwork for low risk businesses and making complex regulations easier to understand will also help create safer environments for workers and the public.

"Inaccurate reports of the impact of health and safety on businesses can be highly damaging. Putting the record straight on common sense regulation that saves lives will help cut the unnecessary costs that exaggerated fears can cause."

The report found some firms are paying for health and safety support they could do more cheaply in-house or which goes beyond what is required by the law with little or no benefit in the workplace.

Andy Willox, Federation of Small Businesses' Scottish policy convener, said: "No-one wants to own, manage or work in a dangerous workplace.

"And, where companies are engaged in inherently hazardous work, of course inspections should be appropriate to those hazards.

"Some good work is being done in Scotland through Healthy Working Lives but small businesses in low-risk premises - where there are no dangerous chemicals or heavy machinery - can still find it difficult to know exactly what they need to do to comply with what is still perceived as a complex set of regulations.

"Any moves, therefore, to free up small business people in low risk sectors to spend more time actually doing business without compromising staff and public safety are obviously most welcome."