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29/11/2011
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The government plans to abolish many health and safety regulations and hopes to have removed the first rules from the statute book within a few months. The announcement from the Department for Work and Pensions came in response to the long-await Löfstedt review, commissioned by employment minister Chris Grayling earlier this year and delivered this week.
 From 1 January, a new challenge panel will be established to allow employers to get the decisions of health and safety inspectors overturned swiftly if they have got it wrong.
Professor Ragnar Löfstedt's report, entitled 'Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation', proposed a number of measures which have been accepted by the government. These include:
* Reducing health and safety regulations by a third rising to over a half over the next three years, by combining, simplifying and reducing the 200 existing regulations
* Ordering the Health and Safety Executive to review its Approved Codes of Practice (currently numbering 53), the first phase of which must be completed by June 2012. "Some are out of date and some too lengthy, technical and complex," said Lofstedt.
* Strengthening the role of the HSE, which will direct all local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement work to ensure consistency.
* In recognition of the growing compensation culture, introducing measures to ensure employers are not held responsible for damages if they have done all they can to manage risks.
Chris Grayling said: "From the beginning we said getting the regulation of health and safety right is important to everyone. By accepting the recommendations of Professor Löfstedt we are putting common sense back at the heart of health and safety. Our reforms will root out needless bureaucracy."
The full review is avaialble from the DWP, see the link below.
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Author
Laura Cork
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