HEALTH and safety chiefs were today urged to resist pressures to impose new legal duties on company directors.
The plea, from the Engineering Employers’ Federation in Yorkshire, follows a survey suggesting there has been a “substantial” increase in the number of directors taking a leading role in their companies’ health and safety management.
The HSE has given employers until 2010 to demonstrate that the current approach works or face a change in the law.
The EEF survey showed that 80% of company directors are “actively involved” in managing health and safety.
It said there had been a 40% rise in the number of boards monitoring health and safety manager as one of their “key performance indicators.”
Alan Hall, EEF director for Yorkshire, said the survey showed that the current approach was working.
He said: “This endorses our view that the best way to promote best practice health and safety is to promote good leadership rather than introducing new statutory duties that would lead to a ‘box ticking’ mentality.
“This survey shows that active leadership by directors is now very definitely the norm, not the exception.”
