26 November 2004
Inspectors at the Health and Safety Executive have delivered an overwhelming vote of no confidence in their management board as it prepares to tighten the criteria for accident investigations.
Whitehall union Prospect, which represents frontline staff, has organised a vote in which 96% condemned the board's leadership of the agency.
Prospect is accusing the HSE board of compromising public safety with its plans to limit the circumstances in which accident inquiries are launched.
The proposals are due to be considered at a meeting of the Health and Safety Commission, which oversees the agency, on December 7.
Steven Kay, Prospect's HSE branch chair, told Public Finance that the reforms are designed to reduce the number of investigations the agency undertakes and cut its costs, rather than improve safety.
According to Kay, accidents involving broken limbs or burns to less than 10% of the body are among those that will no longer be investigated.
'The HSE is concentrating on getting people to comply voluntarily, rather than enforcing the law,' he said.
Kay blamed July's government Spending Review and Sir Peter Gershon's efficiency drive for the proposed cuts to investigations. He said the union was also expecting the workforce, currently more than 4,000, to be cut by 600.
Anger among HSE staff is high after ministers last month rejected a report by the Commons' work and pensions select committee, which called for a substantial increase in resources and the number of inspectors to be doubled.
Kay said this had been exacerbated by the failure of the board, headed by director general Timothy Walker, to stand up to the government.
He condemned the board's use of 'froth and spin' to justify the pending cuts. 'Morale has been spiralling downwards for a number of years but things have now come to a head,' he added.
An HSE spokesman told PF: 'The ballot outcome reflects fears that the executive is planning a retreat from enforcement.
'The HSC strategy says we will continue to enforce where appropriate.'
He added: 'HSE's settlement in the Spending Review has not yet been finalised. It is not possible, therefore, to say whether we will need to make workforce reductions in the coming year.'
Procurement policy changes 'could help' equality
A Whitehall task force is to consider ways of adapting public sector procurement rules to improve the job prospects of Britain's expanding ethnic minority population.
The chair of the government's Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force has vowed to look at 'ways to ensure that guidance on how public procurement can be used to promote race equality is put into practice,' as part of a wider drive to improve job prospects and pay for ethnic minorities.
Figures released on November 23 by Emet chair, minister for work Jane Kennedy, show that ethnic minority workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as the general population, even though the gap is closing. The employment rate for people from ethnic minorities across Britain is 59.4%. compared with 74.9% for the overall population.
Ethnic minority groups are also more likely to earn less, Emet found. Kennedy said the figures were shocking and promised that the pan-departmental task force, set up last year to tackle such inequalities, would take further action.
The Strategy Unit is working on guidance for Whitehall procurement contracts to promote equal opportunities. Other measures include doubling the size of the Race Relations Employment Advisory Service in Acas and clamping down on discriminatory employers.
The civil service has boosted ethnic minority employment in the past few years, but has been criticised for targeting an employment rate of 4%, when ethnic groups make up more than 7% of the UK population.
Scots legal expert takes up academic position
The Scottish Executive has seconded one of its most senior officials to a post at Glasgow University as visiting professor of government in law.
Jim Gallagher, head of the Executive's justice department, will join the university's centre of public policy for the regions. He will also be visiting professor at the new centre for applied ethics at Glasgow Caledonian University.
A former private secretary, Gallagher has worked in a number of government departments in Scotland, including central service finance, and is a former head of the Executive's local government and Europe group.
Before becoming head of the Executive's justice department in 2000, he was on secondment to the UK Cabinet secretariat and then to the Prime Minister's policy unit.
His secondment to Glasgow University will take place in January and is expected to last two or three years.
Robert Gordon, chief executive of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services, will take over as head of the justice department.
He will retain his current responsibility for legal and parliamentary services.
PFnov2004
