Health and safety experts have accused the UK Government’s workplace welfare regulator of “appalling” failures throughout Covid-19 in ensuring employee safety.
A new report from The Institute of Employment Rights (IER) claims the large number of continued workplace transmissions are, in part, down to the background role played by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) during the pandemic.
The report, HSE and Covid at work: a case of regulatory failure, calls the branch “a hollowed out shell” and highlights the £100 million cut to HSE funding in the decade leading up to Covid-19.
Professor Andrew Watterson, one of the thirteen academics who contributed to the report, believes the lack of funding coupled with the lack of leadership from the HSE has led to inaction as workplace outbreaks continue 12 months into the pandemic.
The Stirling University lecturer said: “We’ve had a year to learn these lessons and they are too slow.
“Some of these things were happening in April, May, June 2020 and in March 2021 they are still happening.”
The report claims that the HSE failed to prosecute rule breaking employers and slammed the “appalling performance” of the regulator which “cost lives”.
“We’ve seen a large number of workplace clusters in a wide range of workplaces and right across Scotland,” said Professor Watterson.
“They have occurred in factories, supermarkets, warehouses, construction sites, offices, oil rigs, ships, fire stations and so on.
“The continued outbreaks of Covid clusters in several industries and employment sectors including some repeat outbreaks in the same workplaces and companies is an indicator that Covid-secure workplaces within Scotland, as well as England and Wales, are not adequate to protect employees and effective inspection, information and, where necessary, regulatory enforcement are not happening.”
The IER claim that the ‘spot check’ system to detect breaches of Covid-19 workplace compliance was an underfunded failure.
The report states: ” Evidence from a TUC survey undertaken between July 31 and August 5 2020 indicated that very clear breaches of the law were present in over a third of workplaces.
“This survey found that 62% of workers were not aware if their employers had carried out Covid-secure risk assessments.
“Only 42% reported being given adequate PPE, 34% said they were concerned about not being able to socially distance from colleagues and 30% said they were worried their workplace would not be cleaned properly.”
The HSE was given extra funding of £14 million to carry out spot checks but researchers beleive this would only have enabled the agency to carry out the calls on 0.5% of the 5.5 million duty-holders or employers under their review.
The writers of the report have called for a major independent inquiry into the future of the regulation of safety and health at work and want a “significant increase” in investment in the HSE.
A HSE spokesperson said: “We have been made aware of the report and will examine its findings.”