'Press ahead' with health and safety accreditation

MPs recently raised concerns that health and safety consultants were unregulated, and that a symptom of this was often "over-zelous" advisers encouraging employers to produce over-burdensome risk assessments. See our news article from April here.

The cross-party Work and Pensions committee called on the Government, in consultation with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), to introduce "recognised accreditation for health and safety consultants and advisers, with appropriate sanctions for malpractice."

In its formal response to the committee this week, the Government said it agreed there was a case for accreditation, and that it was for the professional bodies themselves to come together to address the issue.

"The Government is facilitating a meeting of the relevant professional bodies to discuss how an accreditation scheme could promote the responsible and proportionate provision of health and safety advice," it said.

"The professional bodies would also need to agree who would run such a scheme and how it might be financed. Any accreditation scheme should not only just test expertise, but also test and accredit people so that they are able to apply that expertise in a proportionate and sensible manner."

'Incompetent advice'

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) said it welcomed the Government's acceptance of the need for employers and workers to know how to access competent health and safety advice.

IOSH president Ray Hurst, said: "After years of campaigning, it seems we’re finally getting the Government to understand that people and businesses need the best safety advice.

"You wouldn’t put your medical needs in the hands of an unqualified doctor, so why put lives at risk because of incompetent health and safety advice, or risk unnecessary bans on perfectly reasonable activities?"

He added: "Unfortunately, at the moment anyone can operate as a health and safety consultant, without any qualifications or experience at all. We think this is wrong. Employers should know what to look for and should make sure that they and their workers are getting the best advice from the best people. They deserve that."

IOSH said it was keen to work with Government and other bodies to establish minimum qualification and experience levels for health and safety consultants in the UK.