RIDDOR under review

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) is publishing an online discussion document as part of its review of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR).

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) is publishing an online discussion document as part of its review of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR).

A key element is to ensure that any future reporting requirements are easy to understand and that businesses can achieve compliance without undue administrative costs.

It is also essential that any reporting system is unbureaucratic and does not burden business unnecessarily.

This discussion document is an opportunity to consider the current reporting system and its direction in a fundamental way, looking at the whole reporting system and its principles.

Although the discussion document contains no formal proposals for changes to the Regulations, it discusses RIDDOR's key objectives and current issues and identifies proposals where changes might be made to benefit both the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities as well as duty holders.

Launching the discussion document, Bill Callaghan, chair of HSC said: "RIDDOR is one of the most important sources of information for the enforcing authorities and guides some, but not all, regulatory activity.

"However, the case has yet to be made as to whether RIDDOR is really the best means of gathering information on occupational health and for the purposes of health and safety statistics, or whether we could rely on other mechanisms to collect this information.

"We need RIDDOR and the reporting system to be key drivers for improving behaviour and standards of health and safety management to help us achieve our vision of a world in which sensible health and safety is a cornerstone of a civilised society.

"The Review is, above all, a unique opportunity to go back to first principles to develop a reporting system to take us to 2010 and beyond".

The full text of the discussion document can be viewed or downloaded from the HSE's website.

Comments on the proposals can be sent using the electronic comment form on the consultation webpage and returned by email.

Those wishing to make a hard copy return should refer to the annex at the end of the document and send their comments to the address supplied.

Hard copies of the discussion document are also available from this address.

All comments must be received by Thursday 30 June 2005.

The discussion document does not contain worked up/costed proposals.

It seeks external stakeholders' views on four proposals for possible changes to RIDDOR.

These have been developed following work by an internal cross-HSE Working Group and limited consultation with some key stakeholders at a Public Forum held on 20 January 2005.

The HSC made a commitment in the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement in June 2000 to undertake a fundamental review of the health and safety incident reporting regulations.

A similar commitment was made in the Government's response to the House of Commons Environment Transport and Regional Affairs Select Committee recommendation in its Fourth Report, The Work of the Health and Safety Executive (Session 1999-2000).

This discussion document also asks for views on whether 'at work' work-related road traffic incidents should be made reportable under RIDDOR.

This follows recommendations in the Dykes Report, Reducing At-work Road Traffic Incidents (November 2001), and by the Department for Work and Pensions Select Committee in its Fourth Report on the Work of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive published on 14 July 2004 (Session 2003-04).

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