New RIDDOR regulations approved

18 August 2011

The Health and Safety Executive’s board is to recommend to UK government ministers an increase in the time threshold for reporting workplace injuries and ill health.

At a meeting on Wednesday August 17, the HSE approved a revision of RIDDOR regulations, which would extend the period of absence required to trigger an accident report from more than three days (O3D) to over seven (O7D).

But this move to ‘O7D’ is a controversial one, with many IOSH members worried about a trivialising of those accidents which result in employee absences of seven days or less. So the Institution welcomed the HSE’s suggestion that the Board also writes to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, outlining those concerns.

The HSE recommendations were presented in a paper outlining the outcomes from the recent public consultation on RIDDOR involving IOSH and its members. Headline findings included:

• A 2:1 majority behind the proposed change to O7D reporting – mirroring IOSH’s own member survey on RIDDOR
• Identified benefits, such as reducing the administrative burden and making sickness absence management easier, aligning the new reporting period with ‘fit notes’
• Identified concerns, including ‘negative impact on health and safety culture’, a lowering of standards, and reduced opportunities to spot incidents that could have resulted in more serious injuries

If the move from O3D to O7D reporting is approved by Ministers, it will come into force on April 6 next year.

The report read: “Following widespread consultation, there is a clear majority of 2:1 in support of the proposed change. No fundamental obstacles have been identified.
“Therefore, on the basis of this alone, it would be difficult to conclude that the proposed change that the Government has accepted, may not go ahead."

It was the view of officials, continued the report's authors, that the Board should recommend to the Minister the proposed change to RIDDOR with two "consequential legislative amendments" raised by consultees.

These were to protect certain rights of safety representatives, and to extend the deadline by which the responsible person must make the report.

IOSH head of policy and public affairs Richard Jones said: “We support the HSE’s suggestion that its Board sends a letter to the Minister outlining concerns from the consultation about the change to over seven-day reporting.

“In our survey on RIDDOR, members were 2:1 in favour of the change, but a significant number had concerns that this would lead to ‘over three-day’ accidents being trivialised. We also believe a wider review of RIDDOR is needed.”

A HSE spokesman told IOSH: "Following consideration of the responses to the public consultation on changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR), which were 2:1 in favour of the changes set out in the Government's Common Sense, Common Safety review, the HSE Board will recommend to Ministers an increase in the time threshold for reporting workplace injuries and ill-health from the current level of over three days to over seven days." 

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