Health and safety rules stifling business say UK manufacturers

Red tape was damaging competitiveness as firms struggled to keep down rising costs of compliance, WM's survey found. The mounting paper trail was often geared towards defending against litigation rather than boosting standards, firms warned. Nearly two in ten respondents said they now spent over 10 hours a week tackling health and safety. "UK manufacturers are in danger of compromising competitiveness by overspending on complying with all red tape legislation," one respondent said. Another added: "The increasing emphasis on litigation makes health and safety a highly bureaucratic process which is in danger of moving the emphasis to ensuring a paper trail is in place to defend any actions." However, the Health and Safety Executive refuted the criticism. The organisation said it was working with local authorities to minimise administrative burden. A spokesperson said: "Good health and safety in any business has always been about action not paperwork. ..We remain committed to making it easier and simpler for people to take sensible and proportionate measures to protect people." Despite bemoaning rising red tape, over 80% of survey respondents ranked their site safety levels as exemplary or high. However, 80% also reported that a staff member had gone to hospital because of a work-related injury in the past five years. A further 10% had suffered a staff fatality at some point. The findings should be contrasted against an industry wide decline in major accidents, Neal Stone, director of policy and research at The British Safety Council. "We're now on an upward curve and it would be great to think respondents were referring to accidents that occurred five years ago rather than recently." Eighty-eight manufacturers from a cross section of industries responded to the survey.