Good morning everybody and start by thanking you very much for attending
and for coming along and hopefully joining in our conversation but I also want to thank you for all the work you’ve done up to today
cos I think one of the sad things about health and safety is that
for a whole variety of reasons the media tend to concentrate on the absurdities rather than the achievements so I want to thank you personally and I also, like David, just want to draw our attention that it’s
a sad fact that people are still killed at work and somebody was killed, a worker was killed in, in Dudley on Friday so it’s apt that we’re here talking about how we can improve standards.
We started the roadshows in Glasgow and we’ve been to Cardiff and now we’re working our way around England.
By the time we get to London on the 2nd of February we’ll have heard from hundreds if not over a thousand people directly
and we’ve engaged thousands more through what they tell me is called social media so I’m not a Twitter person at all.
Birmingham is a pretty obvious place for us to come, not only obviously one of the biggest cities in Britain but also of course a major city in the West Midlands.
It’s got a proud and industrial and cultural heritage, an exciting future lies ahead.
Those of you perhaps who haven’t been here for a while who came through the new Birmingham station would have been absolutely amazed at the turnaround and the investment it looks fantastic.
I mean I haven’t been here for about a year and the change is absolutely dramatic so it’s got an exciting future ahead
Service sector sure and tourism but also because this area is well known internationally well regarded on manufacturing base and equally important it’s got some pretty good transport links.
So today’s conversation is about building on a health and safety story that dates back all the way to the Factories Act of 1833
and we can be proud of the fact that we’re one of the safest working countries in the world.
We have a mature system of regulation with lots of experienced and committed participants.
You could say it happened by accident because a lot of it did.
Hard lessons drawn down a long road of industrial accidents and disease
But that would only be a fraction of the story of the development of health and safety in our country.
The successes that we’ve achieved have also brought with them problems and opportunities to name a few.
It is very challenging and will be challenging for us on this new approach and with yourselves to drive further improvement but we must meet that challenge.
In a search for continuous improvement there can be a temptation for inappropriate standards for our staff or our supply chain.
The increased awareness of health and safety expectations in society has led to them being misused and abused damaging health and safety’s reputation.
The focus of safety challenges has detracted from effectively tackling health issues.
All of us, all of us in this room are part of the health and safety system which has developed over the last 40 years
and we can be rightly proud of our achievements to date but we know we can do better
and doing that in a proportionate and sensible way is the challenge.
Better does not always mean doing more it’s about identifying and managing real risks and acting on them smartly.
Having the courage to say when doing less might be more appropriate, we need to act together to gain broader ownership and commitment.
That means we need to talk share ideas and find the courage to take some new directions.
We need to broaden the membership of the health and safety system and we need to identify potential synergies with other policy agendas here in The Midlands and around the rest of Great Britain.
Employers, workers, trade unions, governments and others who are part of the system, we all need to think hard about our role and our contribution.
Together we will develop and deliver a new strategy for the health and safety system that will help Great Britain work well, be more producting, productive and be safer.
I would like you to have 3 thoughts in mind today as we discuss the way ahead.
Does your personal contribution to health and safety really help others or confuse them.
Is ownership and responsibility for health and safety in the right place in your organisation and focus on the right things.
What could you personally do differently to help us to create an even better health and safety system in Great Britain
And there are 3 things at our conversation and a new strategy will need to tackle and they are ownership - this starts with all of us
we all have an active part to play in implementing the strategy, making it really come alive.
You need to help identify the most important challenges and develop ways of taking collective ownership.
That includes taking a good hard look at whether our individual contributions actually help people and businesses.
We care passionately about keeping people safe and well but ownership will be key to success.
The core process, the core business of the HSE is that people go home safely at night and that will not be diluted
This process is all about enhancing that core process and doing it in a way that effectively will deliver smarter ways to work and safer ways to work and more productive ways to work.
On health we’ve achieved a lot on safety over the years but there is much, much more that can be done on health and it needs to be Britain’s wellbeing and prosperity depend on better managing work-related ill-health.
Twenty-three million working days are lost each year through work-related ill-health.
The annual costs to Britain are estimated at £9 billion pounds, £9 billion pounds
and that’s in addition to the costs from ill-health problems due to working conditions in the past what we tend to term the historical legacy.
Boost in Britain’s businesses will only achieve better outcomes if businesses especially SMEs can get the right information at the right time and take the right action easily and efficiently.
HSE has already updated the stock of health and safety legislation and guidance to help companies but it just isn’t enough.
We all need to help smaller employers focus on the right things in the right way and this is where larger companies and larger corporations have a very, very strategic role to play
and we must banish the myth that health and safety equates to bureaucracy.
We have a better story to tell, businesses actually benefit from the productivity, innovation and growth that health and safety done well can bring.
We have set out 6 key themes in order to help focus our conversations.
These will help shape the content of the strategy as well as the level of our ambition.
Once a strategy is published it will also help us to ensure we deliver on its intent.
The first of the 6 themes is promoting broader ownership of workplace health and safety, what does that mean
why is it important, why is today different, why is this new initiative different than you’ve seen before and how it can be achieved
because it does mean actually engaging everyone who shares the responsibility for help, helping Britain work well.
Why, because we all have a vital role at managing risk and preventing damage to individuals, businesses and the economy.
How can it be achieved, well we want your help with devising the best ways.
Ensuring people feel ownership of the health and safety system is certainly part of it and someone said to me earlier oh I get it, you’re offloading your responsibilities to us lot.
Well I can understand that comment but the truth of the matter is it is all our responsibility, that’s the reality of it,
whether you’re a regulator or whether you’re trying to deliver a work in, in a business, all of it is related to exactly the same issue.
We have to ensure people feel ownership of the health and safety system
and we need to find ways to demonstrate the benefits of showing that commitment to people who haven’t fully engaged in the past.
Opting out just isn’t on any longer.
The second theme of the strategy is highlighting and tackling the burden of work-related ill-health.
Something frankly that may have been ignored for far too long.
Last year there were an estimated 13,000 deaths from work-related lung disease and cancer.
Reflecting historical conditions and standards certainly and 1.2 million working people were suffering from work-related illness.
That’s around 4% of Britain’s entire workforce, half a million of those were new conditions that started during the year
So work-related ill-health is a big problem for every section of society and solving it requires action across all businesses, sectors.
It ranges from the long latency hazards that can lead to cancer and other diseases to musculoskeletal disorders
And the drive must come from all of those with a stake in keeping people healthy and fit for work and life.
We want to hear your thoughts today about how ill-health, risks at work can be more effectively managed.
The third theme is about small and medium size employers, about supporting them with straightforward advice that helps them work well.
Working together we’ve already done much to support SMEs including producing straightforward tools and advice yet this is also one of those areas where significant challenges remain.
Reaching SMEs is difficult, very difficult but not impossible.
More players in the system need to step up to the winner’s podium where the best large businesses and intermediaries are already gaining more efficient supply chains and productive relationships.
They are doing this by appointing the SMEs they work with in the right direction and that does not entail overcomplicated advice or unnecessary barriers and costs for doing business.
This also feeds in to the fourth strategy theme of enabling productivity through proportionate risk management.
Well-intentioned but sometimes ill-informed advice to small low risk businesses needs to change.
It can leave them thinking that the health and safety bogeyman, the insurers and everybody else are waiting to pounce.
That they need to have every conceivable risk whether relevant or not under lock and key and paperwork in triplicate.
It’s in all our interests to avoid feeding perceptions that risk assessments mean excessive paperwork or that risk management means managing every task however trivial or remote.
This can be costly and inhibits productivity, creativity and growth and of course confidence.
Managing the right risks in the wrong way can be just as wasteful and focussing on the wrong priorities because they are less challenging is another trap we need to avoid.
Health and safety professionals have a particular role to play here, helping a small company get it right in an efficient and effective way is good for you as well as good for your clients.
Focussing on getting the right outcomes is more likely to mean the company will grow and come back for advice as it reaches the next stage in its development.
Looking to the future also provides the fifth key theme, anticipating and tackling new health and safety challenges.
This once again is for everyone in the system but it is an area that HSE has particular role using its world leading research capabilities.
They are already being put to use increasing HSE’s own efficiency and targeting as well as helping in Great Britain and oversees to improve health and safety and productivity.
HSE’s horizon scanning experts, expertise sorry will be used to the full both by HSE and to assist government’s with demographic, technological and global economic changes affect the world of work
But your ideas of how we can track, keep track of trends and changes as well as any particular challenges you see on the horizon are invaluable and they are vital.
The final theme is sharing the benefits and successes of Britain’s approach to health and safety cos it is about sharing best practice, both at home and abroad.
Supporting higher standards of protection for workers in countries where it needs improvements.
This can help project British influence overseas and make it easier for British businesses to expand in to new markets and territories as well as raising labour standards to UK levels.
If we can all come together to help achieve these things and maintain the gains made in safety it will help improve productivity, keep business costs down and keep workers safe and well.
Work should not make people ill, when it does it is a cost borne by the individual, their family, the business and many parts of the state.
It is avoidable and often inexcusable.
HSE will continue to take its responsibility as the prime mover in the system seriously, we will continue working with everybody here
co-regulators and colleagues across government to ensure our regulation is as simple and as effective as possible
and to continue to leverage HSE’s expertise to achieve improvements such as the millions of savings to business that HSE’s regulatory simplification brought over the last 5 years.
Today, through today’s and others, other speakers the discussions you have and the experiences you will share.
I hope that you can help deliver not only the best health and safety strategy in the world but over the next 5 years help us deliver on its promise.
Today is part of the beginning but it does start with you, by contributing to the strategy you are helping to build a safer, healthier and more prosperous Great Britain.
You are helping to protect lives, the quality of life and livelihoods, you are helping employers to innovate, be more productive and grow.
You are in every sense of the phrase helping Great Britain to work well.
Thank you for your attention and for listening and I’ll repeat what I said at the beginning.
Thank you probably for the hundreds and maybe thousands of working men and women who’ve actually gone home safe at night because of the things that you’ve done in your time working in this field.
You may never meet them but their families thank you and I thank you. Thank you very much.