Enforcing Safety Law in Britain: Beyond Robens?

Abstract

The Robens Report recommended the introduction of measures to reform the regulation of health and safety in British workplaces. Treated as a radical departure from traditional approaches to health and safety regulation, the Report's recommendations were largely enacted in the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. This Act also established the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which assumed responsibility for achieving compliance with its provisions. This article focuses critically on the HSE, examining its statutory responsibilities, priorities, organization and resources, largely through drawing upon extensive empirical data gathered in the course of a recent two-year review of occupational safety and health regulation. It argues for reforms in all areas of safety law enforcement in Britain, and represents an attempt to generate debate regarding the basic assumptions of the Robens philosophy of self-regulation, assumptions which retain such dominance that debate on the topic is largely absent from political agendas.