Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has opened a three-month consultation on proposals to exempt self-employed people whose work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others from health and safety law.

The Löfstedt review recommended that people who work for themselves be taken out of health and safety law if their work posed no risk to others.

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 places duties on self-employed people to ensure that they and others affected by their activities are not exposed to harm.

New official statistics have shown that the number of workers fatally injured in Britain last year remains largely unchanged.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released provisional data for April 2011 to March 2012, which shows 173 workers were killed - down two from the previous year.

The rate of fatal injury remains the same at 0.6 per 100,000 workers.

The Department for Transport has published statistics showing that in 2011 more people died or were injured in reported accidents on British roads than in the previous year.

In particular:

• The annual number of people killed in road accidents reported to the police has increased by 3%, from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011. This is the first increase since 2003.

InjuriesBoard.ie has published a review of workplace accidents in Ireland in 2011 that shows compensation totalling €22.5million (2010: €25.1million) was awarded in respect of 830 (2010: 889 awards) personal injury workplace claims.

Accidents in the workplace accounted for 8.4% of all personal injury awards in 2011, compared to 11% of all awards in 2010. The decrease in the number of claims for workplace accidents last year reflects the reduced numbers in employment during the period.

Key findings of the review include:

• Men are twice as likely as women to receive an award for a workplace accident - accounting for 70% of all awards (2010: 75%) versus 30% of awards to women (2010: 25%). However, the number of women receiving awards has increased by 5% due to their increased presence in the workforce during the recession.
• Men received an average compensation award of €27,246 (2010: €28,924) compared to €26,771 (2010: €25,876) for women.
• Thursday is deemed the most dangerous workday while Sunday is considered the safest, due to the smaller proportion of people in the workplace at weekends.
• November is the most dangerous month for workplace accidents, while April is the safest.