As part of its attempts to reduce the regulatory burden on UK business, the government has announced a review of older prescriptive health & safety legislation, specifically the Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998 and the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000.
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) plans a consultation process to identify and remove what might be considered to be unnecessary regulatory burdens and identify potential changes to legislation to reflect technological advances and reliability of work equipment.
LOLER requires that all lifting operations involving lifting equipment must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner. Lifting equipment must be fit for purpose and subject to statutory periodic thorough examinations – with records kept and defects reported.
The review of LOLER is part of a wider government drive to reduce regulatory burdens, including environmental protection laws that are deemed to have added cost and delays to house-building and infrastructure projects. As previously reported, it is planning to introduce an offsetting scheme for wildlife habitat destruction.
The HSE also plans to consult on potential changes to the definitions, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences reported under the Reporting Of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurrence Regulations (RIDDOR) 2013 and consider improvements to the reporting process to ensure business can comply in the most efficient way possible.
The review of business regulations is being overseen by the Regulatory Innovation Office, set up within the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) last October as a new bureaucracy to reduce bureaucracy – inviting comparison with Jim Hacker, the fictional minister of administrative affairs from the 1980s.
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