Health and Safety Commission Chair Bill Callaghan on “Good Health is Good Business”

Abstract

The mission of the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Commission is to ensure that risks to people's health and safety from work activities are properly controlled. The commission aims to modernize, simplify, and support the regulatory framework; to secure compliance with the law: to improve knowledge and understanding of health and safety; and to promote risk assessment and technological knowledge as the basis for setting standards and guiding enforcement activities. The commission also operates statutory schemes, including regulatory services through such agencies as the Employment Medical Advisory Service. Bill Callaghan was appointed Chair of the Health and Safety Commission in October 1999. He was previously the chief economist and head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the national body representing all U.K. trade unions. He wrote the TUC's key strategic document, Partners for Progress, setting out priorities in employment relations, and he was responsible for its May 1999 conference, Social Partnership, Partners for Progress: New Unionism in the Workplace, which established priorities in employment relations. He has considerable experience with different groups in the business community and has served on the boards of Business and Community and the Basic Skills Agency. Mr. Callaghan was appointed to the U.K. Government's Low Pay Commission in 1997. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University.