Regulation Of Health And Safety At Work

Created on: 23 Jan 2018 | Last modified: 24 Aug 2018

Introduction

1 The law on health and safety at work in Great Britain is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities (LAs). Between them, HSE and LAs regulate a diverse range of work activities and workplaces that have different levels of health and safety risk.

2 The primary responsibility for managing these risks lies with the business or, in some instances, the person that creates the risk.

As regulators, our role is to determine that businesses are effectively and proportionately managing their health and safety risks to workers and others.

3 To do this, we use a range of interventions to influence, encourage and advise business and, where necessary, hold to account those who fail to meet their responsibilities. 

As regulators, we conduct our regulatory activity in accordance with the principles of good regulation (targeted, proportionate, consistent, transparent and accountable) and with regard to the Regulators' Code, including having regard to economic growth.

This document explains the main features of our regulatory approach, including the interventions that we use.

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