CEO's desk - September 24

OFTEN AT BSIF the summer months can provide a period of calm and stability, allowing for planning ahead of what is always a busy period in the autumn months. It hasn’t been that way this year! Yes, the planning has had to go ahead as normal, and it has, but after some years of political upset and regulatory turmoil we obviously had an election and a change of government in July. So potentially more upheaval and change in our industry on the horizon.

In the last issue of HSM I wrote that the continuing recognition of CE had been passed through the “Commons” and is now law. So, for good or ill, that is issue is done and dusted. 

The King’s Speech at the start of the new Government’s period in office, announced that the Product Safety and Metrology Bill is likely to update product safety law to reflect some of the innovations in the EU’s General Product Safety Regulation (which does not apply in the UK post-Brexit). The effect of this could be that some of the EU legislation provides market surveillance authorities with the power to order online marketplaces (OMP) to remove dangerous products from their websites, and that could be picked up now by the UK. The UK’s own independent Product Safety (recommendations) legislation did not make the “cut” prior to the proroguing of parliament ahead of the election. 

BSIF, spearheaded by the Registered Safety Supplier Scheme, have devoted a great deal of resource in trying to ensure that non-compliant and potentially unsafe PPE supplied via OMPs are removed, but the current legal framework remains apparently inadequate to deal with the situation. I say apparently, because we are, I can assure you, continuing to research means of finding the appropriate legal mechanisms to manage out, unsafe PPE and restore some fairness to the market in general.

Whether the comments in the Kings Speech herald a closer regulatory relationship with the EU remains to be seen. I personally hope that the new government is very selective and chooses well when determining which EU rules to follow. For example, currently there is the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) (coming into effect by the end of December 2024). This regulation in effect requires manufacturers to be able to prove that product, including PPE, does not come from any geo-location that had been “de-forested” after 2020. This is undoubtedly a well-intentioned piece of legislation, but the infrastructure and systems for market surveillance and enforcement are simply not ready.
It is clear that good proportionate well drafted regulations make a positive contribution to our lives, and manufacturers who take responsibilities for their products put systems in place. However, without effective enforcement it means that bad actors can continue to do what they want and again an already unfair market is made more unbalanced. 

I use the example of EUDR because it is currently causing challenges, but in general terms regulation without enforcement is window-dressing and discriminatory in as far, as I mentioned above, that responsible businesses follow rules while irresponsible ones do not. It is perhaps an obvious thing to say, but enforcement requires resources and with the new chancellor recently making it clear that money remains tight it does not look like there will be much, in the world of competing priorities, to go around.

I would like to draw you attention to the impact of the lack of resources on the work of one of our most important regulators, the Health and safety Executive (HSE). HSE are responsible (amongst other things) for policing Occupational Safety and Health in the UK. This responsibility includes PPE used at work.

A recent report published by Prospect, highlighted the financial challenges within the HSE where they are required to cover wider responsibilities with lower income. It illustrates the impacts, including drops in staffing overall of 43% in the last 20 years and a fall off in the number of Inspectors (those that enforce the regulations) of 41%.

With less inspectors you get, of course, less inspections and consequently less enforcement of regulation. In the year 2010/2011 the HSE carried our over 33,000 inspections and by comparison in 2022/2023 they completed just under 15,000. That is a reduction of over 50% and a greater relative reduction than the reduction in inspector numbers!

What perhaps may surprise you, and it certainly did me, is that only 2% of the RIDDOR reports filed last year were subject to an investigation, with the HSE citing insufficient resource as a reason why some mandatory investigations were not undertaken.

The HSE is a well-run and highly valued institution and makes a major contribution to the safety and health of our society. We need it to be adequately resourced and I hope that you will join me in calling for the Government to recognise HSE and its work and resource it correctly.