New simplification plan

The Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission have published their second annual simplification plan, setting out “soft-focus” plans for deregulating health and safety under the guise of reducing paperwork and bureaucracy.

The organisations pledge to cut their administrative costs by at least 22% in the coming year, with plans to revise policy documents, construction and manual handling regulations and even workplace drinking water signs in an effort to reduce the “administrative burden”.

The plan is available at www.hse.gov.uk/simplification/simplification07.pdf