Chapter 16Employing labourThe Commission
The Commission has the following general duties:
1 to assist and encourage health and safety measures;
2 to make arrangements for the carrying out of research,
the publication of the results of research, and the pro-
vision of training and information in connection with
these purposes, and to encourage provision of train-
ing and research in the publication of information by
others;
3 to make arrangements for an information and advis-
ory service;
4 to submit recommendations for new regulations;
5 to direct the holding of investigations and inquiries.
The Inspectorate and its major powers
In order that there should be compliance with health
and safety legislation, health and safety inspectors are
given wide-ranging powers, for example to:
■enter premises;
■examine and investigate, take measurements, samples
and photographs and make recordings;
■require any person whom they reasonably believe to
be able to give information to answer questions and
sign a declaration of the truth of those answers;
■require the production of, inspect and take copies of
books or documents or entries in them;
■serve upon any person who is in control of particular
activities an Improvement or Prohibition Notice (see
below).
1 Improvement notices. The Act provides that if an
inspector is of the opinion that a person is contravening
one or more of the statutory provisions relating to
health and safety or has done so in the past and the
circumstances suggest he is likely to do so again, he may
serve an improvement notice on him requiring the per-
son concerned to put matters right within the period
stated in the notice.
In general terms, these notices have been served in
connection with, e.g., stairways and lifts but in an inter-
esting development such a notice has been served in
regard to employee stress by reason of long working
hours and bullying at a Dorset hospital. This shows the
increasing concern of the HSE in regard to workplace
stress and the health risks (see also p 507).
2 Prohibition notices. The Act also provides that if
an inspector is of the opinion that activities as they are
carried on or are about to be carried on involve a risk of
serious personal injury, the inspector may serve a prohibi-
tion notice on the person who controls the activities.
The notice must give the inspector’s reasons for think-
ing that the activity is unsafe. When the notice has been
served, the activity must cease immediately. It should be
noted that improvement and prohibition orders may be
issued in respect of offences under the provisions of the
various health and safety regulations already considered.
They have, for example, been served in regard to service
lifts (sometimes called dumb waiters) in restaurants,
which can be overworked and not properly maintained;
they have also been served in respect of dangerous stair-
cases leading to kitchens in a restaurant, resulting in the
restaurant being closed until the staircase has been put
into good order.
Under the provisions of the Environmental and Safety
Information Act 1988 the Health and Safety Executive
is required to keep a register of improvement and pro-
hibition notices which is available for inspection by the
public. Such notices are not required to be registered
where they would reveal a trade secret such as a secret
manufacturing process.
3 Appeal against improvement or prohibition notice.
There are rights of appeal against improvement and
prohibition notices. The appeal is to an employment
tribunal. An improvement notice is suspended until the
appeal is heard or withdrawn and things can go on as
before. A prohibition notice is not automatically sus-
pended but may be if the person making the appeal asks
for suspension and the tribunal so directs. Suspension is
from the date of the tribunal’s direction.
There is a right of appeal from the tribunal to the
Divisional Court of the Queen’s Bench, both against the
making of either notice or against a refusal to suspend a
prohibition notice.
4 Power to deal with cause of imminent danger.
Under the 1974 Act an inspector has power to enter
premises and remove from them any article which he
has reasonable cause to believe is a cause of imminent
danger or serious personal injury and cause it to be
made harmless, whether by destruction or in some other
way. This part of the 1974 Act requires the inspector to
make a report giving his reasons for taking the article
and to give a copy to a responsible person at the pre-
mises from which the article was removed and to the
owner if the two are not the same, as where the owner
has let his premises for industrial use.511