HSC's public safety U-turn

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has been forced to revise its policy on public safety issues after legal advice stated that the policy was unlawful and fundamentally flawed.

Safety campaign the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) sought the advice following the HSE's introduction of a new public safety policy in November 2003.

The policy said that Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors would not have to investigate possible breaches of employers' duties concerning the safety of the public, or to take enforcement action including prosecutions, where incidents involved the police, hospitals, road-traffic incidents, local councils and others.

This meant that the HSE would not have to investigate deaths of members of the public except in extremely limited circumstances.

The HSC now accepts that it may be "appropriate to investigate" where initial enquiries, or information from other sources, indicate that a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was the probable cause of the injury.

CCA director David Bergman said: "Though this new policy may appear to represent a subtle shift, it is a significant one." He added that the HSE has "been forced to recognise that it has wide statutory obligations to enforce the legal duties imposed upon employers to protect the safety of the public."