Health and Safety at Work

Question: Discuss the health and safety related legislations in UK and management system to respond to legislation. Answer: Introduction The health and safety at the workplace in the United Kingdom, is administered by the Health and Safety Executive from now on referred to as HSE. The HSE is a public body that works for the regulation, encouragement, and enforcement of health and safety at workplaces. The HSE is not a departmental body also responsible for researching the risks arising out of occupation in the United Kingdom, Wales, and Scotland. The Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974, created the HSE. The headquarters of HSE is situated at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is crucial to provide health and safety provisions by any organization (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). It is because the proper health and safety provisions in any organization help to ensure that the employees are not injured helps to create safety and health culture, helps to analyze the better management of health and safety and helps to meet the legal requirement of organizations to meet health and safety provisions. Health and Safety Related Legislations in UK History of Health and Safety Legislations Occupational health means and includes all the spheres of health and safety at the workplace and strongly focuses on the basic hazard prevention. The history of health and safety provisions is a recent phenomenon. The need for health and safety provisions at the workplace was felt with the cropping up of the labor movements. In the nineteenth century in England, with the enactment of the Factory Acts, the need for health provisions for the poor children involved in the cotton mills was greatly felt. The publication was made by the royal commission in 1840 regarding the working conditions of the workers engaged in the mining industry at that time (Bahr 2014). Key Elements mentioned in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, 1974 The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act of 1974, was passed by the British Parliament, and it provides the basic structure and body which is involved with the regulation, encouragement, and enforcement of the safety, health and welfare provisions at workplace situated in the United Kingdom (Bratton and Gold 2012). The Act states the duties of the employees, employers, suppliers and contract in work premises and the persons who manage the work premises. The Act covers a wide area of regulation that involves ministers from the government. The Act has been a statutory mechanism since 1974. The Act states the general principles relating to managing health and safety at workplaces. The Act also specifically provides the Code of practice in the form of regulations for regulating the health and safety at workplaces. Some of the regulations are Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations relating to Control of Hazardous Substances (2002), the Health and Safety at Work Management Regulations (1999), etc. The Act also intended to make rational the confusing systems of legislations which are existing (Channing 2013). The Act has set out several objectives and goals. They are as follows: To secure the health, welfare and safety provisions of the human beings at work. To protect the persons who are not at work, from the risk issues of health and safety arising out of the persons involved at work (Ferrett 2012). To control the use and keeping of substances flammable in nature that includes explosives (Chassin and Loeb 2013). Provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act The Act starts by stating the duties of the employers. Section 2 of the Act states the general duties which the employers need to follow (Hoel 2013). The general duties of the employer are as follows: creating provisions and maintaining system of work that are usually risk-free and safe to health. making arrangements to ensure that the risks to health are not present about storage, use handling and transmission of goods and services. making provisions for those information to the employees which are related to the health and safety of employees. making provisions for providing the working environment for every employee. According to Section 3 of the Act, it is the duty of the employers and the self-employed persons to make provisions regarding the safety of the persons who are not employees. It includes the safety of the clients, visitors, etc. It has to be noted that the Act does not extend to the domestic servants (Hughes and Ferrett 2015). Section 4 of the Act provides the duties of the occupiers for maintaining a risk-free and safe environment to work. The term occupiers include the commercial landlords, maintenance contractors, etc. Section 6 (1) of the Act declares the duties of any person who is involved in designing, supplying, manufacturing and importing any article which is used at work. The duties of the persons are ensuring that the articles constructed by him are safe and possess no risk to the health of the persons involved, performing the essential tests of the articles for the purpose of ensuring the safety, to take essential steps to secure that the health and safety provisions are attained at the workplace. Section 7 provides the duties of the employees at the time of work. The duties of the employees are to take reasonable care of the health and safety of themselves as well as the persons working with them or other employees. The other duty of the employees is to cooperate with the employer, who is performing his duties. Section 8 of the Act states the duties of the persons in general. The sections make it clear that no person shall interfere or indulge himself with anything that is involved with the misuse of interests of health, safety and welfare of people in the workplace. In every section, there is a word reasonably practicable mentioned. The word has been incorporated in the sections to make it clear that the duties of the employer and employee are not absolute. The employer and the employee have to meet the requirement of their duties only in those cases where it physically possible to meet. It also means that the employer and the employee must make reasonable efforts to perform their duties but if it is possible physically. Health and Safety Executive Functions The Health and Safety Executive performs the following functions: to assist and encourage persons who are performing their duties by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act of 1974. to encourage research work and arrange for their publication relating to the health and safety at workplaces. to propose new regulations to be introduced. to keep the Secretary of the State informed about its plans. The Secretary of State keep is entitled to direct the Executive. to make arrangements to provide Employment Medical Advisory Service. Regulations relating to Health and Safety The Secretary of the State is assigned with wide powers to formulate health and safety regulations. The breach of any duty set forth by the Secretary of the State can result in any criminal prosecution under section 33 of the Act. Management System to respond to Legislation The employees may find the regulations of the Act confusing to file individual suits. By section 18 of the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974, the HSE has the authority to delegate its actions to the Government with the view of getting a targeted approach. It has been clearly mentioned that any enforcing authority can appoint or indulge inspectors for enforcing the health and safety provisions. The Local Government bodies that can act as enforcing authorities are districted councils, county council where district council is not present, councils of London Borough, London common council, etc. The powers of the inspectors are as follows: to enter any work premises which he bears a reason to believe that it is essential for him to enter to enforce the provisions of the Act, at any reasonable time and in a dangerous circumstances. to go along with any constable if he bears any reasonable fear regarding the execution of his duties (Hughes and Laryea 2013). to take any other person who is authorized to act on the enforcing authority or any materials required for the cause of exercising his power to enter the work premises. to conduct any test or examination that he deems necessary for the enforcement of the Act (Kang et al. 2016). to decide whether any part or whole part of the premises be kept undisturbed for the purpose of his investigation. to collect such photographs and measurements that consider fit for the purpose of his investigation. to take any sample articles or things found within the boundary of the premises. to cause any substance which seems to be a risk to health or safety, to be destroyed by any test or method, not to damage or destroy it unless there is a necessity to enforce the Act (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). to take possession of any article and retain it for the purpose of examining it (Linsley 2015). for ensuring that the article is not tampered in any way before his examination (Wilson and Sharples 2015). for ensuring that the article can be used as evidence in any proceedings in the court of law (Larson 2015). to demand any person to deliver information that is relevant to the investigation. to ask for the production, inspection of any copies of any documents or books which is required by any statutory provisions of the Act or any other documents or which it is essential for him to look through for any investigation or examination (Sievert et al. 2013). to demand any person to provide him such frame work and assistance on any things which is in the control of the person or about which that person possess the functions that are essential to enable the inspector to perform the powers conferred upon him (Tucker and Folkard 2012). To perform any other power, that is required to enforce the Act (Chen and Osman 2012). Conclusion It can be observed that if there is any offence committed in terms of health and safety, that is directly attributable to negligence of any manager or director or secretary or any other officer of the similar rank of the organization, then that person or organization can be put to prosecution under section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974 (Cane and Atiyah 2013). The latest case laws have affirmed that the directors can never avoid any charge of negligence under section 37 by making arrangements for the business of their organization so that they are ignorant of facts that would incur their responsibility to address the breaches of health and safety (Okoye and Okolie 2014). The persons held responsibly is liable to fines and sentenced to imprisonment. In addition to that, section 2(1) of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 gives powers to the court to disqualify any individual who is accused of offense in relation to the management of any company. The section includes offenses relating to health and safety. The referred power is at the discretion of the courts, and it is not required to conduct an extra investigation (Moran 2013). The directors who are individual can be held liable for any other related faults, such as the offenses stated in common law such as manslaughter and gross negligence (Forster 2014). In common law, if gross negligence is proved only when the individual officers cause death by their gross negligent behavior (Feng 2013). The referred offense is punishable by a fine of any amount and imprisonment that can extend to any number of years (Owen and Lewis 2014). Recommendations The recommendations that are reached by the researcher is that the health and safety provisions of any organization must be able to assess the risks and dangers of the customers, employees, partners and other peoples (McCaffrey 2013). After the assessment of the risk, the organization must make proper arrangements for the organizing and control of the measures that protects the health of the persons. Any organization must have their health and safety measures written in a prescribed form. Lastly, the organization must have access health and safety measures which are competent. Reference List Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014.Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Bahr, N.J., 2014.System safety engineering and risk assessment: a practical approach. CRC Press. Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012.Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan. Channing, J., 2013.Safety at Work. Routledge. 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