| 192. |
The Committee received evidence of inconsistency
of enforcement across local authorities.
A report by Unison and the Centre for Corporate
Accountability, based on data for 1999/2000,
found ‘huge variation between local
authorities in levels of inspection, investigations,
in enforcement notices and in the numbers
of health and safety inspectors.’ The
LGA argued that there were mistakes in this
report. The Centre for Corporate Accountability
provided details of four errors in the detail
of the report but told us that, overall,
its accuracy had been accepted by HSE. |
| 193. |
Both CoSLA and LGA were concerned that the
narrow focus on the number of inspections
done did not reflect other activities carried
out by local authorities, such as provision
of advice to businesses. They also questioned
the link between the number of inspections
and improved health and safety outcomes.
In oral evidence, CoSLA said that ‘we
do not have too much evidence at the moment
of what interventions work’ and pointed
to ongoing work to develop a ‘more
meaningful performance indicator.’
The question of whether the impact of enforcement
in the local authority sector is the same
as in the HSE sector was identified as an
issue in the recent literature review on
interventions to improve compliance. In
the meantime, however, it would appear sensible
to use the extensive research evidence on
the effectiveness of HSE interventions.
|
| 194 |
.
CoSLA considered the current level resourcing
of HSE monitoring of local authority enforcement
activity to be insufficient, with HSE ‘only
doing selected and obviously failing local
authorities.’ The Centre for Corporate
Accountability told us that HSE uses one
person to audit local authorities compared
to over 40 employed by the Food Standards
Agency. CoSLA also attributed the Food Standards
Agency (FSA)’s comparative success
as being due to its having kept food safety
and hygiene high on the public agenda, having
posed a number of strict targets, and having
taken a much stronger line on informing
councils of their duties under the Food
Safety Act. |
| 195 |
Section
12 of the Food Standards Act 1999, states
that the FSA has the ‘function of monitoring
the performance of enforcement authorities’,
including by setting standards. The FSA
has the power to report on the performance
of any enforcement authority and to include
guidance on actions to improve performance.
It may direct the authority to publish this
report and notify the FSA of the action
it has taken in response. |
| 196. |
Section 45 of the Health and Safety at Work
Act allows the HSC, where it is of the opinion
that an investigation should be made into
whether a local authority has failed to
perform its enforcement functions, to make
a report to the Secretary of State. The
Secretary of State may direct that a local
inquiry should be held to consider this.
Where an authority is subsequently found
to be in default, an order may be made requiring
the local authority to perform certain functions.
Where it fails to do so, performance of
enforcement functions may be taken over
by HSE. This procedure looks unwieldy compared
with that available to the Food Standards
Agency, and it is not clear that it has
ever been used. |
| 197.
|
At
the moment, the system of auditing is a
peer review system which reports back to
HSE. CoSLA told us that most local authorities
in Scotland would prefer to have a third
party auditing system, but that this system
should apply to HSE in the same way as to
local authorities. The LGA argued that peer
review was the best way of auditing local
authorities. However, it felt that the performance
of both HSE and local authorities should
be analysed by HSC. |
| 198. |
The
Committee recommends that HSE undertakes
and publishes by 1 October 2005 a thorough
audit of the performance of local authorities.
The Committee further recommends that additional
powers should be made available to allow
HSC/E to take actions against any local
authority manifestly failing in its duty
of enforcing health and safety regulations. |
