19 August 2005
The Health and Safety Executive is to encourage more public bodies to sign up to a new occupational risk index to help combat rising insurance premiums.
An HSE spokesman confirmed that it and the Department for Trade and Industry were discussing how to increase participation in the corporate health and safety performance index (Chaspi).
Chaspi was launched to surprisingly little fanfare last month but has the potential to help public and private sector organisations reduce insurance costs, as well as tackle the HSE's core targets: sickness absence and accidents at work.
The HSE said this week that it could also play a 'small but influential' part in helping public bodies meet their efficiency targets under the government's £40bn 'Gershon' savings plan, by freeing resources used for insurance.
Chaspi is a voluntary membership on-line index that benchmarks an organisation's health and safety performance against its own targets and peer performance. It ranks them according to HSE criteria and makes the results publicly available.
Of Chaspi's initial 99 participants, 41 are public sector organisations, including fire authorities, police authorities, ambulance services and NHS trusts.
HSE spokesman Ray Allger told Public Finance: 'If you look at the London Ambulance Service, for example, its skilled workforce enter into dangerous activities and its insurance premiums are high as a result. The Chaspi could allow the LAS to compare its risk management practices against its peers and simultaneously show its insurers that… when it performs to tight standards, its working practices represent less of a risk than might otherwise be calculated. That could free up scarce cash from lower premiums.'
It has been suggested that the Chaspi could also form part of DTI plans for 'lighter touch' regulation of areas such as health and safety by handing more responsibility for risk assessment to insurance firms.
However, a DTI source said that would mean compelling organisations to sign up to the index and the government 'has no plans for such a switch'.
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