Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Enforcement
An internal audit of HSE’s regulatory decision making was undertaken during 2005/06.
The main aim of the audit was to provide information and assurance on the quality of regulatory decisions made during the investigation of incidents by HSE and Local Authorities (LAs). A further aim was to provide baseline data and information on enforcement behaviour for the HSE Enforcement Strategic Enabling Programme (StEP).
This was a collaborative exercise undertaken by Internal Audit and Assurance (IAA), in conjunction with OPSD’s Operational Policy Unit (OPU). A team drawn from IAA, Directorate auditors, LAU and regulatory specialists (inspectors) carried out the fieldwork.
A Peer Review Panel (PRP) examined 126 incident investigations that had been carried out by HSE and LA inspectors. The panel, which comprised experienced and senior inspectors from HSE and LAs, were provided with a case summary for each investigation. The case summaries provided details of each incident and the investigative action taken by the inspector, but did not include the actual final action taken by the inspector.
The PRP agreed the action (or a range of possible actions) they believe should have been taken for each case. The PRP decisions were then compared to the actual decisions. The overall finding was that the panel agreed with the investigating inspector’s decision in 108 of the 126 cases. There were no cases where the panel felt that the inspector had been over-zealous. There were 18 cases where the panel felt they would have taken significantly stronger action, including 12 instances where they thought a prosecution was probably appropriate.
The panel acknowledged that the team approach of the PRP, combined with the somewhat artificial setting, tends to lead to decisions for bolder regulatory action. It was also accepted that some of the cases were rather complex and it was difficult to reach a conclusive decision in at least one of the cases where a possible prosecution was proposed.
The audit acknowledged that there is considerable effort through the Enforcement Programme to improve consistency in this area.
The report recommended that the Enforcement StEP take into account the findings of this audit in developing recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of HSE’s (and LA’s) investigation and prosecution activities. Progress will be monitored over the forthcoming months.