institute for employment studies
Hillage J, Kersley B, Bates P, Rick J
Contract Research Report CRR 268/20, Health and Safety Executive, June 2000
Health and Safety Executive, Contract Research Report CRR 268/2000
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies to conduct an evaluation of health and safety consultation and representation arrangements. The purpose of the study was to examine:
To meet these objectives a multi-stranded study was designed incorporating:
The fieldwork took place between February and June 1999.
Starting with the issue of representation, we found that almost half (48 per cent) of British workplaces have a health and safety representative - 56 per cent of workplaces that consult employees on health and safety. Larger workplaces are much more likely than smaller ones to have representatives. Because of this skewed distribution, we estimate that safety representatives cover around three-quarters of the British workforce.
In the vast majority of workplaces, the safety representative is not a trade unionist. In nine out of ten workplaces where there are safety representatives they are appointed from outside the trade union movement. In a few cases, around four per cent of work-places, there are both trade union and non-union representatives. In around six per cent of cases the representatives are exclusively trade unionists. Where they are appointed most trade union representatives cover the health and safety interests of non-union members as well.
These findings are broadly comparable with those from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 and reflect the pattern of collective bargaining in Britain. As our sample is representative of British workplaces it is dominated by small establishments - relatively few of which have recognised trade unions.
Most non-union representatives volunteer or are appointed by management; relatively few are elected. This may reflect difficulty in finding enough employees willing to carry out the role.
Representatives’ main functions include reporting potential hazards, inspecting the workplace for hazards, and representing employees on health and safety issues. In the follow-up interviews we detected a difference between the majority of representatives, who played a reporting/reactive role in response to a hazard, and the minority, who had the capability to take preventative action themselves. Non-union representatives were reported in the employer survey to be less likely than those from trade unions to ‘represent’ employees on health and safety, suggesting that a proportion (perhaps as much as a quarter) would not meet conventional definitions of the role of a representative.
Most representatives said that they spend at least an hour, but less than four hours, each week on their health and safety responsibilities.
In most workplaces, representatives had received at least some training (mainly in-house) - although in a quarter of cases they had not. Good quality training was generally thought to be important to enable representatives to carry out their responsibilities effectively. Nearly all employers gave paid time off for training to their representatives, though only two-thirds paid the full cost of training.
Representatives generally had access to a range of facilities to help them perform their duties, typically telephone, stationery, photo-copying, and (slightly less often) health and safety information.
Most representatives thought that management co-operated in enabling them to carry out their functions.
Employers felt that their representatives were generally effective in carrying out their role, although smaller workplaces were more likely to think their representatives effective than were larger ones. Representatives and employees alike were confident in their representatives’ knowledge of health and safety issues and felt that they were able to influence workplace practice.
Turning to consultation more generally, we found that one in ten employers do not consult their employees about health and safety issues at all. These tend to be small workplaces in the retail and hospitality sectors. They also tend to be relatively new and not unionised. The main reason that they do not consult is because they are small and feel that they either have few health and safety issues and/or are well aware of employees’ concerns.
As for the rest, the extent to which they consult rises with size of workplace. Across the sample as a whole there appears to be a fair (but not extensive) degree of consultation taking place. Consultation appeared to be most extensive in more established workplaces, in the voluntary sector and, to a lesser extent, the public sector and in workplaces with trade union members. It is not clear that all those employers who say they consult, are engaged in some form of two-way/interactive exchange of views. In some the process is more a one-way provision of information.
Most consultation takes place informally. The main method of consulting with safety representatives was informal discussions. Only a quarter of workplaces (over two-thirds of those with at least 50 employees) had a safety committee. Most safety committees met between every one to three months and were considered fairly effective by our employer respondents and employee representatives alike. Employers with larger work-places were not as positive about their committees as those from smaller workplaces.
The vast majority of employers who consult their employees at all, say that they consult directly, mainly through informal discussions, but also staff meetings and team briefings. Larger workplaces tended to use a wider range of consultation mechanisms, particularly written forms such as noticeboards, memos and newsletters.
The main issues employers talk to employees about are safety policy, changes to workplace layout, and health and safety training.
By and large most employers had a fairly positive view about consultation and consulted their employees regularly, a view endorsed by (albeit unrepresentative) samples of employees and employee representatives. Most thought it worthwhile and they got useful ideas from employees, which led to improvement in health and safety in the workplace.
However, some employers were far more sceptical about the value of consultation. They tended to be small construction companies without trade unions and were less likely to consult employees directly or have employee representatives. Where they did have representatives, these sceptics tended to consider them less effective than average, but were less likely to provide them with training or pay for training.
By contrast, the enthusiasts at the other end of the scale tended to be more service sector oriented and/or in the public sector. They were often relatively new workplaces and, like the sceptics, less likely than average to have trade unions. This group was more likely to consult, and consulted through a wider range of means than average workplaces.
We also examined the role of the legislation in this area and found that only a minority of employers in the survey was aware of either the HSCE or the SRSC Regulations. The former seemed better known than the latter. Awareness rose by size of workplace and more people had heard of the HSCE than the SRSC Regulations.
Fewer than half of the respondents from workplaces with recognised trade unions said that they knew of the SRSC Regulations. Fewer respondents from workplaces without safety representatives were aware of either set of Regulations, compared with those with some form of representation. Two-thirds of the safety representatives in their survey had heard of at least one set of regulations and half the employees in their survey said that they were aware of the HSCE Regulations.
Employers who were aware of the Regulations felt they had a reasonable understanding of them, although there were some suggestions in the follow-up interviews that their knowledge may be limited. Most of those who were aware of the Regulations also said that they knew of the relevant HSE guidance. Those who had seen the guidance thought it fairly useful.
There was little evidence to suggest that the Regulations, particularly the HSCE Regulations, had a major impact on workplace practice. Although we found a few examples where new procedures had been developed as a result of the Regulations, most employers and employee representatives felt that the Regulations had made little difference.
However, employers generally agreed that this was a legitimate area for legislation, to try to ensure consistent application of good practice.
Although employers did not see any need to change the Regulations, almost half felt that they should cover all workers, including non-employees, and most would prefer to have one coherent set of Regulations rather than two. There was also an expressed desire among employers for more guidance as to appropriate action to take on consultation.
The report may be purchased from HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury CO10 6FS. Telephone: 01787 881165 Fax: 01787 313995
Workplace Consultation on Health and Safety, Hillage J, Kersley B, Bates P, Rick J. Contract Research Report CRR 268/20, Health and Safety Executive, 2000.
ISBN: 978-0-71761-796-8. £20.00
2000 © institute for employment studies
Source URL: http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/summary/summary.php?id=hse268&style=print
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