Covid-19
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Labour market enforcement
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Labour market

Failed safe?

Enforcing workplace health and safety in the age of Covid-19

Lindsay Judge
Lindsay Judge
Hannah Slaughter
Hannah Slaughter

This briefing note is part of a three-year programme of research exploring labour market enforcement generously funded by Unbound Philanthropy. Using a new survey of 6,000-plus UK working-age adults fielded in September this year, and administrative data from the enforcement agencies themselves, we explore how workers, employers and the regulators have responded to the threat of Covid-19 transmission in the workplace over the past six months, and draw a number of conclusions as to how enforcement could be improved.

The topic is highly relevant to policy makers for two key reasons. First, ‘Covid-secure’ workplaces are critical for containing the virus over the coming months. Second, safe workplaces are also necessary if economic activity, so crucial for living standards, is to return to anything close to normality in the foreseeable future.

Key findings

  • More than one-third (35 per cent) of employees back in the workplace in September had an active concern about Covid transmission at work, despite the significant steps the majority of employers have taken to make workplaces ‘Covid-secure’.
  • Low-paid workers are less likely than high-paid workers to raise concerns with their employer, or to see their concerns resolved when they do so. Moreover, almost half of all workers (47 per cent) do not know who to approach externally in the event they raised a health and safety concern with management but it was not resolved.
  • The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was slow-off-the-mark to send inspectors out to workplaces to ensure they were safe at the start of the pandemic, though activities have now been ramped up. Significant budget cuts over the last decade clearly constrain the number of investigations both the HSE and local authorities can conduct.
  • While the HSE draws on many sources of intelligence to identify where non-compliance is most likely to be found, little credence is given to the (unorganised) employee voice. In addition, the health and safety system has been reluctant to use its strongest enforcement tools to tackle poor practice during the pandemic, in part because Covid-19 has been deemed a ‘significant’ but not a ‘serious’ risk in the workplace.
  • This case study highlights weaknesses in the general approach we take to labour market enforcement in the UK. The risk-based enforcement model has its virtues. But without adequate resourcing, a more systematic use of employee intelligence and in some circumstances, a more precautionary approach to enforcement, poor and unlawful employer practice could continue unchecked.

Recommendations

  • More weight should be placed on the employee voice as a source of intelligence to inform enforcement targeting.
  • The health and safety system should take a more precautionary approach to minimise the risk of virus transmission in the workplace, especially in sectors where high numbers of low-paid or non-unionised workers are found.
  • Additional Government funding for both the HSE and local authorities should be ring-fenced for health and safety enforcement not just for the duration of the pandemic, but beyond.

Related items

Covid-insecure
How safe are our workplaces during the pandemic?
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Lindsay Judge, Hannah Slaughter

Further reading

Get Britain’s Stats Working
Exploring alternatives to Labour Force Survey estimates
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Adam Corlett
Calculating the Real Living Wage for London and the rest of the UK: 2024
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Nye Cominetti, Louise Murphy
Labour Market Outlook Q3 2024
The Growth and Skills Levy
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Sofia Corcoran, Louise Murphy
Lindsay Judge
Lindsay Judge Research Director
Hannah Slaughter
Hannah Slaughter Senior Economist