Health and safety at the north/south divide

Barry Holt considers the different challenges faced by those
managing health & safety in the North and in the South

As a northerner who has worked in
the south since leaving university,
I have seen this supposed
separation from both sides. Does it
actually exist and if so does it apply to
health & safety? There is no hard and fast
answer to this but from data produced
from HSE and from the Labour Force
Survey there is some evidence to support
this. However, when considering this
issue we need to understand the changes
in demographics which occurred in the
last three decades of the 20th century.

When the Health and Safety at Work Act
was introduced in 1974, British industry was
still predominantly manufacturing. I started
to work in the health and safety field around
that time and much of my time was spent
with industrial companies in the north;
mining, ship building, engineering, chemical
industries were all focussed there. But, if we
look at London and the South East there was
still a significant proportion of
manufacturing. However during the 1980s
and ’90s we saw manufacturing industry
heavily impacted by the policies of the
Government and the beginnings of a move
to a global economy. This led to companies
moving production to cheaper markets and
buying raw materials from overseas with the
loss of many jobs and much UK production
capacity. This trend was multiplied by the
effects of industrial relations problems which
affected many UK industries at that time.

Although the impact was felt everywhere
in the country, the north of England,
Scotland and South Wales and Ireland were
particularly badly hit. Classic examples of
that impact were the shipbuilding industry
on Tyneside and Clydebank and the textile
industry on Lancashire and Yorkshire
which in the 19th century formed the basis
for the industrial revolution and our wealth
creation. From the house where I was
brought up I could see six operating cotton
mills; now there is not a single one left. I’m
sure that many readers can remember the
miners’ strike when effectively the whole of
an industry was shut down.

So what replaced this loss of
manufacturing and with it, the thousands
of jobs? As manufacturing declined its
place was taken by the growth in financial
and service industries. From the point of
view of health & safety these have
significantly different risk profiles. That is
not to say that they are risk free but the
risks arising from work with display screen
equipment is very different from those
associated with the iron and steel industry
with its reliance on molten and hot metals
and heavy machinery, not to mention the
health risks from high temperatures and
high noise levels in which people worked.

This may sound simplistic and we know
of manufacturing sites in the south east of
England, for example, paper mills still exist
where employees are exposed to high noise
levels, high humidity and moving
machinery. Service industries have been
located in the former industrial areas;
however the balance between
manufacturing and service has changed
with the latter being focussed in London
and the South East and the remaining
manufacturing industry being more
focussed in the regions.

While these changes have been taking
place, HSE figures show that the number of
fatal injuries has been steadily decreasing;
although the latest figures actually show a
rise from 147 to 171, this can still be seen as
within the boundaries of the model used.

However other figures published by HSE
and the Labour Force Survey allow
comparisons to be made on a region by
region basis. Based on these figures which
consider rates of self-reported ill-health, rates
of reportable injury, fatal injuries, and
RIDDOR injuries, there is a close correlation
between the data for the North East, North
West and Yorkshire and Humber regions
but when these three are compared with
the figures for London, those for London
are lower by a statistically significant amount
in most categories. However, from the point
of view of enforcement, there is at least as
great a chance of being prosecuted in
London as in the regions.

This is inevitably a fairly superficial
review but it does suggest that there are
valid reasons to support this data showing a
greater risk of injury for workers in the
north of England.

Barry Holt is policy director for the
International Institute of Risk & Safety
Management (IIRSM). Stand 64.