CIEH strongly welcomes OSHCR governance changes coming from its strategic review

CIEH welcomes the outcome of the strategic review by the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR). OSHCR is a public register of UK-based health and safety advice consultants that helps employers and business owners with general advice on workplace health and safety issues. This is the only Health and Safety Executive (HSE) backed source of assured, independent and consultancy advice on occupational health and safety. CIEH sits on the reconvened advisory board for the Register.

Outcomes of the review included:

• Recognition that UK-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are still in need of OSHCR and its brand reputation is still strong. This is proven by an HSE review, which found that the OSHCR brand had higher than expected levels of recognition among businesses surveyed (27%), with awareness among businesses with less than 50 employees at 11%.
• OSHCR is the way of assuring the quality of health and safety consultants and their services. Organisations can be confident in the access it provides to a range of suitably qualified generalist or specialist safety and health consultants.
• The concept of OSHCR still fits within the HSE Blue Tape Strategy to provide advice and reduce the administrative burden on business. HSE Inspectors highlighted that some consultants were currently not delivering proportionate advice, either through over engineering or not delivering robust solutions.
• Outcomes of the review will be taken forward as part of ongoing work to shape the proposition and unlock the huge potential of an OSHCR. As part of this process, a breadth of expertise has been brought in to form part of the new governance and advisory group.

Debbie Wood, Executive Director for Membership and External Affairs at CIEH, said:

“CIEH strongly welcomes the findings of the strategic review by the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register, which has support of the UK regulator. This important Register provides a key source of assured advice for small and medium businesses, who require independently assured advice on health and safety.

We are pleased to be part of the new advisory board and will continue to work together with the other organisations and professional bodies to help strengthen the role of this Register going forward. It is important that businesses can have confidence that they will receive competent, independent and proportionate advice, which the OSHCR creates through checks and balances.”