GB health and safety law is built in two layers. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets broad duties on employers, the self-employed, people in control of premises, manufacturers and employees. The regulations underneath it say what those duties mean in practice for particular risks. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 are the ones that apply to everybody, because they are about how you manage safety rather than about any single hazard.
The 1974 Act, sections 2 and 3
Section 2 puts a duty on every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees, and spells out systems of work, plant, handling and storage, information, instruction, training and supervision, and the workplace itself. Section 3 extends the duty to people who are not employees but who could be affected by the way the business is conducted, which is what catches contractors, visitors, tenants and the public.
What the Management Regulations add
Regulation 3 requires the risk assessment. Regulation 5 requires arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of preventive measures. Regulation 7 requires the appointment of competent persons. Regulations 10 to 13 require information, cooperation between employers sharing a workplace, and training. Schedule 1 sets out the general principles of prevention, and CDM 2015 points back at it.
Reasonably practicable, and what the phrase actually means
It is a balance struck by weighing the risk against the time, trouble and cost of averting it, and the balance is struck in advance rather than after an accident. Gross disproportion is the test: a measure has to be grossly disproportionate to the risk before cost alone justifies not doing it. As low as reasonably practicable, usually written ALARP, is the same idea applied to residual risk.
What an approved code of practice does
An ACOP is approved by HSE with the consent of the Secretary of State and has a special status: it is not law, but if you are prosecuted for a breach of a provision an ACOP covers, and you did not follow it, you must show you complied in another way that was at least as effective. That is why departing from an ACOP is a decision worth writing down at the time.
Who enforces it, and what a prosecution looks like
HSE enforces in higher risk sectors including construction and manufacturing; local authorities enforce in offices, retail, hospitality and warehousing. Inspectors can give advice, serve improvement or prohibition notices, or prosecute. A prohibition notice stops the activity immediately, which is the intervention that costs a business most and is the one least often anticipated.
Reading the whole statute book without drowning in it
The practical approach is to hold a legal register: the small number of instruments that actually apply to your work, what each requires of you, and where your arrangements meet it. That is a far more useful artefact than a printed list of every health and safety instrument in force, most of which will never apply to you.
Questions people ask about management of health and safety at work regulations 1999
What is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974?
The primary GB statute for occupational health and safety. It places general duties on employers, the self-employed, controllers of premises, manufacturers and employees, qualified by what is reasonably practicable.
What do the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require?
Risk assessment, arrangements for planning and reviewing preventive measures, appointment of competent persons, health surveillance where needed, emergency procedures, information, cooperation between employers, and training.
What does reasonably practicable mean?
That the risk is weighed against the time, trouble and cost of averting it, with the measure required unless it is grossly disproportionate to the risk. The judgement is made before the event.
Who enforces health and safety law?
HSE in higher risk sectors such as construction and manufacturing, and local authorities in offices, retail, hospitality and warehousing.