Local authority phase of HSC's Worker Involvement Programme underway
20/12/05
The UK Minister responsible for health and safety at work, Lord Hunt, is urging local authorities to ensure that they make worker involvement a key element of their health and safety work programmes for 2006/7, enabling this through partnership arrangements that can make worker involvement a reality.
The Worker Involvement Programme will be working with HSE regional Partnership Managers to encourage LA's to put worker involvement into their plans of work.
A variety of tools will be developed and available to Local Authorities next year to help them in making worker involvement central to the management of health and safety in their sector.
"Local authorities are responsible for enforcement in over 50% of work premises with almost half the employed workforce and the decisions you make on risk have a major impact. Our ambitions for lower rates of injury and ill-health cannot succeed without the participation and vigilance of those who work with the risks and their representative organisations, the unions.
An actively engaged workforce is one of the foundations that supports good health and safety. I would urge workers to engage with their employer in pursuit of healthier and safer workplaces." - The Minister speaking at the joint LACORS(Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services) and HSE national conference in Westminster.
The 2005
Local Authorities Health & Safety Handbook can be downloaded here.
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