Levels of Investigation

The annual return only asks Local Authorities to provide information on the ‘percentage’ of reported "total injuries" investigated – divided into injuries to workers and to members of the public. It does not ask separately for the numbers of deaths, major injuries and over-three day injuries which have been investigated. This makes analysis difficult. If for example, a local authority had reports of 0 deaths, 50 major injuries and 50 over-3 day injuries and the annual return states that it investigated 50% of the total, it is not possible to know whether it investigated all of its major injuries but none of its over-3 day injuries, or whether it investigated half or its major injuries and half of its over-3-day injuries.

Our analysis shows that there is a huge variation in investigation levels in the 350 local authorities we were able to look at. Our analysis showed that 90 local authorities investigated all reported injuries to workers whilst 105 local authorities investigated all reported injuries to members of the public. 85 local authorities investigated 100% of both injuries to both workers and members of the public.

There are also many local authorities that investigate only a small percentage of injuries. 17 Local Authorities investigated less than 10% of reported injuries to workers, and 21 investigated less than 10% of injuries to members of the public. 9 local authorities did not investigate any of the reported injuries to workers.

However, in order to understand the significance of the percentages, it is important to know the actual numbers of injuries that are reported to the local authorities.

Investigation into Worker Injuries
In relation to injuries to workers, we have only been able to obtain information from around 350 local authorities. We found ten local authorities which had received reports of over 100 reported injuries and investigated every single one of them.

For example, Wolverhampton – which investigated all of its 148 reported injuries (26 of which were major) – can be compared with Leeds City Council– which investigated just 4% of its 445 reported injuries (64 of which were major). It is not clear, of course, how many of these investigations concerned ‘major injuries’ rather than ‘over-three day injuries’– and therefore the percentage of major injuries investigated could be much higher than 4%.

Investigation into major injuries to members of the public
9 Local Authorities which had reports of over 30 major injuries to the public investigated all of them. However this can be compared to Sandwell MBC which only investigated 7% of its 39 reported injuries and Westminster which only investigated 5% of 111 reported major injuries.

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