In a recent letter to the Herald Scotland online publication, members of the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group at the University of Stirling have expressed their concern over the state of health and safety in UK workplaces.
Professor Andrew Watterson and seven of his academic colleagues expressed particular worries over the withdrawal by the government of routine inspections to check that relevant health and safety training, safe practises and the safeguarding of employees is taking place in many workplaces, which they believe undermines the enforcement of health and safety laws.
The government is said to be doing this in order to ease the burden of what it describes as “excessive” health and safety rules which businesses must adhere to, as well as making an effort to change this country’s “damaging compensation culture”.
However, the letter states that:
“The Government will best protect people in workplaces by effective regulation and enforcement yet the decline in funding for regulators is happening at a time when the UK is still faced with enormous burdens of work-related ill health as well as major injuries due to failures in workplace safety measures.”