For the first time ever, the Government has announced targets for a reduction
in work-related deaths, ill-health and injury in Great Britain. Accidents and ill-health among the work force cost the British economy up to £18 billion a year.

The targets are part of a major shake-up of health and safety regulation which includes the abolition of Crown Immunity and the requirement for a named individual within every company to take responsibility for health and safety matters.

The specific targets are to:

• reduce the number of working days lost from work-related injury and ill-health by 30 per cent by the year 2010 (a decrease of 7.5 million working days on current estimates)
• reduce the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health by 20 per cent by the year 2010 (80,000 fewer new cases on current estimates)
• reduce the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10 per cent by the year 2010 ( 3,000 fewer cases on current figures)
• achieve half of each improvement by the year 2004.

To do this the Government and the Health & Safety Commission (HSC) have introduced a ten-point strategy supported by a 44-point action plan which will provide incentives and practical support to employers, together with a range of measures to tackle employers who do not meet their health and safety responsibilities.

The strategy highlights that the health and safety system must promote a better working environment as well as prevent harm. It also: focuses on occupational health as a priority; the need to motivate all employers, particularly small firms, to improve their health and safety performance; the need for Government to lead by example; the importance of education at all levels for improving health and safety and the role of effective design in preventing risk.

The Action Plan will include:

• an occupational health strategy to combat the many work-related illnesses which occur in the modern workplace.
• tougher penalties to deter health and safety offences, including a higher maximum fine and imprisonment
• an examination of new innovative penalties such as fines linked to turnover, prohibition of bonuses and suspension of managers without pay.
• a director's code of practice, which will make a named person responsible for health and safety matters within every company.
• abolition of Crown Immunity as part of a package of major reforms to improve health and safety performance and accountability in the public sector.

Commenting on the targets, HSC Chairman Bill Callaghan, said: "Health and safety at work should be a core requirement of business activity, not an inconvenient 'add-on'. As far as I am concerned, those who cannot manage health and safety, cannot manage. We need to create a positive health and safety culture which sees business go beyond doing the statutory minimum."

Copies of the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement are
available from DETR Free Literature, PO Box 236, Wetherby, West
Yorkshire LS23 7NB tel: 0870 1226236 or fax: 0870 1226237.