Cut the HSE budget at your risk, warns IOSH

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has warned that work-related deaths could rise if the government goes ahead with a 35 per cent budget cut to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

But IOSH said budget cuts unveiled in the comprehensive spending review could threaten the downward trend that HSE statistics have shown, indicating a steady year-on-year decline of work-related deaths and injuries in the UK has been occurring over the past decade, with a 15 per cent drop in the number of people killed at work over the last year alone!

Policy and technical director for IOSH Richard Jones commented: ‘Cuts to the HSE don’t just risk livelihoods; they risk the lives of the people we are trying to protect.

‘And if inspectors are forced off the front line to complete the paperwork that a declining admin staff would previously have done, we could potentially see a hockey-stick effect, where death and injury rates increase once more.”

Britain has the lowest rate of fatal occupational injuries in Europe, a figure that we should be proud of. This year 152 people were killed at work – 27 fewer than the previous year.

That figure is still too high.