50 years of the Health and Safety At Work Act
Posted on 1st October 2024 at 14:34
The Health and Safety At Work Act came into force on 1st October 1974. Why was this piece of legislation revolutionary, and what does it mean for us 50 years on?
2024 sees some significant 50th anniversaries, including the introduction of:
Post-It Notes
Rubiks Cube
Ceefax
Your friendly H&S Consultant
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
As this is a Health and Safety related blog post, we’re going to take a look at the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, why it was introduced and how relevant it is 50 years on. If you want to talk to us about the other great things turning 50 this year, get in touch at chat@applaudbc.co.uk.
Why was the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 introduced?
To understand where the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASWA) came from, we need to have a look back at how health and safety has been managed over the years.
The first piece of health and safety legislation in the UK was enacted in 1802 when the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act was introduced. This was a weak Act, only applicable to apprentices in the wool and cotton mills, and was largely ignored as there was nobody to enforce it.
The Factories Act 1833 was the first bit of H&S legislation with teeth. This Act focused on protecting the child workforce in textile factories and established HM Factories Inspectors, who had enforcement powers to make sure the Act was complied with.
As the industrial revolution continued, the increasing public outcry at poor working conditions and number of fatalities across different industries lead to the introduction of many Acts of Parliament to try to protect workers. Separate Acts were introduced that were industry specific, leading to some industries becoming over-regulated and other industries being left without any regulatory frameworks.
Some examples of industry specific legislation includes:
The Factories Acts
Mines and Quarries Act
Agriculture (Health, Safety and Welfare) Act
Nuclear Installations Act
Construction ( General Provisions) Regulations
....and many more. A full list of historic health and safety legislation can be found on RoSPA's National Occupational Safety and Health Committee site.
A series of high profile incidents with high death tolls, including Aberfan in 1966 where 144 people died (including 116 children) when a spoil heap slipped down a hillside and landed on the village school, and the James Watt Street Fire in 1968 where 22 people were killed as they were unable to escape from a fire in a furniture factory, increased the growing feeling that something needed to be done to protect people at work.
A committee was established in 1970 to review workplace safety; the aim of the committee was to reduce work related deaths, injuries and cases of ill-health. The committee was headed up by Lord Alfred Robens, and the Robens report was published in 1972.
What does HASWA 1974 expect of us?
The Robens Report turned the world of health and safety legislation and regulations upside-down. The main conclusions of the report was that there was too much legislation, sometimes contradictory, and that legislation was overly prescriptive meaning that it was ineffective in keeping up with technological changes.
The Robens Report fundamentally changed the approach to managing health and safety, and proposed that those that generate the risk must recognise those risks and successfully manage them. A guiding principle is that those responsible for generating the risk are best placed for understanding and controlling that risk.
These principles were fully adopted into the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The Act places several duties on employers. employees and government bodies (such as the HSE) alike. The Act mandates that:
Employers have a duty to protect employees and any other persons who may be affected by their activities
Employees have a duty to protect themselves and others, and to comply with Employers health and safety instructions
Government has to support the HSE as a regulatory body for Health and Safety at work.
The Act is an umbrella act, and has provision to implement sets of regulations to impose specific duties when it comes to health and safety.
While the Act is long-reaching with many clauses, the main duties placed on employers are to:
provide a safe place of work
provide safe plant and equipment
ensure staff are properly trained
carry out risk assessments and ensure adequate risk control measures are in place
provide proper facilities
appoint competent person(s) to assist in health and safety matters.
Following the introduction of the Act, we have seen work related fatalities fall from around 1,000 per year in 1972 to around 140 a year in the 2020's. The Act has been largely successful, but faces some challenges in a changing world.
What challenges does HASWA 1974 face?
One of the great things about the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is how adaptable it can be. As the onus was put on those who generate the risk to identify and control the risk. it means that as workplaces and technologies evolves there is room to develop and adapt to new ways of working. Sometimes sets of regulations made under the act need to be revised or new ones introduced to keep up with changes, but the overall framework and principles for managing health and safety are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.
Two big challenges facing those managing health and safety is the digital revolution and increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the impact of work on our wellbeing and mental health.
Taking the second point first, Robens actually considered the well-being of workers in his report in 1972. The framework set out in the Act can be applied just much to psycho-social risks and affects on mental health as they can be to physical safety risks. In recent years we have seen an explosion of people reporting poor mental health, and with 49% of new or long-standing ill-health cases being reported as stress, depression and anxiety it is an issue that employers and regulatory bodies alike have to take seriously.
Employers must already consider the risk of work related stress on people at work. With the boundaries between work-life and home-life becoming more and more blurred thanks to the advances in technology, we are seeing the need for a more person-centric approach to risk management in this area so that individuals have the right support and controls for them. This will mean a culture shift as we focus more on individuals rather than tasks as we assess risks and ways of working, but this will result in a happier, healthier and more productive workforce.
The increasing use of AI brings both benefits and risk when managing health and safety. AI can be used to ensure safe design, development and use of equipment and can help to analyse outcomes and promote a safer workplace. AI can also be used to healthier identify hazards and take preventative measures, such as monitoring a person for fatigue detection or wearable devices to monitor a persons health. AI controlled equipment and machinery can create new physical hazards due to their ability to act autonomously, with potential to result in incorrect machine operations or hazardous interactions between persons and machine.
AI is here to stay, and the fundamental principles of HASWA can be extended to the use of AI; where AI is used we must take steps to fully understand the risks associated with its use and put in controls to reduce that risk so far as is reasonably practicable. The HSE is working on its regulatory approach to AI, and we will see some interesting developments in this area over the coming months and years.
So, is HASWA 1974 still relevant?
For me, the answer is a resounding YES. The Act and regulations made under it have been continuously developed over the last 50 years, and there is plenty of scope to keep adapting as the world changes around us. While we can get frustrated sometimes by the perceived burden of health and safety, the fundamental perceived of those who generate the risk must control the risk is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.
Do you think the Act is still relevant? Let us know in the comments below.
Tagged as: Health & Safety
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