HSE rules out further Worker Safety Advisors

The HSE will not resurrect the Worker Safety Advisor (WSA) scheme, but it is planning to promote worker involvement in small businesses.

The WSA scheme ran between 2004 and 2007. It involved union safety reps in peripatetic consultancy in hard-to-reach industries. HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger told the Work and Pensions Select Committee last month there were no plans to resurrect the scheme as it had only ever been intended as an experimental “pump-priming” project.

However HSE chair Judith Hackitt told the committee the safety body was working with the EEF manufacturers’ organisation and the Federation of Small Businesses to find firms to act as guinea pigs for training on worker involvement. The initiative, planned for next year, is expected to cost £4m over two years.