Who needs Health and Safety Training?

In 2006/7 in Great Britain 2.2 million people suffered from work related ill health, 142,000 other injuries were reported under RIDDOR and 241 people were killed at work. HSE issued 20% more enforcement notices and industry was fined a total of over £13 million for failing to comply with health and safety laws”.

From the above “alarming“ statistics it would appear that there has never been more pressure placed on employers’ to establish the right training programmes for their business.

Training is in fact a control measure, and providing relevant and timely health and safety training will not just help employers to reduce accidents and cases of ill health in the work place but will assist employers to optimise productivity by reducing lost working days resulting from accidents and ill health.

Although there are numerous legislative requirements for employers to provide training, very little is actually prescriptive. Generally speaking if the law requires the employer to provide training, it implies that the training must be of a type and relevance commensurate with the level of risk that the employer is attempting to reduce to safeguard the interest of both the employer and employee.

This means that employers ultimately have the responsibility to determine what training should be required in each case.

With so many factors to consider, many employers find the planning, design and delivery of a fit for purpose training solution to cover all relevant potential health and safety hazards, a significant challenge. The cost of getting it wrong is a significant concern and navigating the legalities can be very daunting.

So in order to help employers, Paul Simpson, Managing Director of Safety Nett (UK) Limited has attempted to unravel the legal requirement for health and safety training.

First of all Section 2 (2) (c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires employers “to provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable the health and safety of all employees”

This implies that training is not in fact an absolute requirement and should only be undertaken if the cost of the training in terms of time, money and effort is low compared with the level of risk reduction brought about by the training.  The quantum of cost balanced with that of risk is the principal deliberation for employers when deciding what training to provide and is often referred to as the “Edwards test. (Edwards v National Coal Board 1949), which is the defining case for the term “so far as is reasonably practicable”.

The legal requirement was expanded by the Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999, which identified situations where health and safety training is particularly important, for example on induction, exposure to new risks, job change, responsibility change, introduction of new equipment, introduction of new safe systems of work and refresher training. The law also states that training must be repeated, provided during working hours and not at the expense of the employees.

The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 require employers to consult employees, or their representatives, on health and safety issues. Representatives appointed under either of these sets of regulations are entitled to time off with pay for training in their duties.

Most prudent employers will establish a training programme that takes account of the needs of their specific organisation, the needs of their individual employees and the tasks that they perform. Training needs of individuals will normally be identified through an employee development review undertaken periodically.

As the training budget is not an infinite resource it would also be a useful exercise to prioritise training needs. This can be done by differentiating between mandatory training, where the training is required under statute and the level of training is defined, for example First Aid training, statutory training which is required under statute but the level of training is not defined, for example Manual Handling or COSHH training, company directed training, where the employer has directed, often as a result of undertaking specific risk assessments that the training is required, and discretionary training, not specifically required under statute but the training is considered beneficial to the company. Raising awareness of health and safety and training relating to cultural development is often referred to under this category.

Having a focused and long term training plan can help employers in preparing a budget rather than requesting finances on an ad-hoc basis and identifying indicators and targets aimed at monitoring performance against their training intentions.

Employers’ should clearly show their commitment so employees recognise that training is important and where possible appoint a “competent” person to manage the training programme. Providing training needn’t be a great burden, but employers do need to think ahead and prioritise.

The HSE’ s simple five – step approach may be used:

Step 1 – Decide what training your organisation needs

Step 2 – Decide your training priorities

Step 3 – Choose your training methods and resources

Step 4 – Deliver the training

Step 5 – Check that the training has worked

Maintaining a balance, in terms of training provision, should prevent the possibility of too much being provided and the subsequent information overload an the risk that the training loses its focus and the attention of the employees. Too little training increases the potential for accidents and cases of ill health and will eventually drive down the quality of the organisation’s overall culture and increase subsequent liability costs.

The main challenge is to make sure that any training makes a positive difference to the company’s health and safety performance and this means engaging the delegates and making the training interesting and relevant to their work environments.

Training methods and delivery style should be varied in order to keep attention and the contribution made by delegates should be encouraged and valued.

Evaluation should also be undertaken at various stages of the programme. Initially to identify the level of the group, as the course unfolds to check the level of understanding of key points etc, immediately at the end of the training and where possible approximately 3 months after the training programme to establish the longer term changes to opinion, attitudes, behaviours that have led to positive actions to improve health and safety performance.

It is also worth bearing in mind that a clear commitment to training is also an important aspect of an active quality management system, and helps  progress towards accreditations such as the “Investors in People “ awards in addition to maintaining the profile of health and safety as a core business priority.

Click here for further details of specific training and consultancy available from Safety Nett (UK)

Article by Paul Simpson, Managing Director, Safety Nett (UK) Limited

Any views given in this article represent the opinion of the author and should not be considered as a statutory interpretation of the law

The author welcomes any comments or observations in relation to this article.

Date of article: 3 Feb 2008