Health and Safety Legislation: Excessive Financial Burden on Industry

Health and Safety Legislation 1
‘HEALTH AND SAFETY LEGISLATION IMPOSES AN EXCESSIVE FINANCIAL
BURDEN ON INDUSTRY'. DISCUSS
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Course Name & Code
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Date

Health and Safety Legislation 2
Introduction
Health and safety (HS) regulation have been imposed in the industries today.
However, the workforce in our world today opts to reorganize their obligations to suit the
implementation of HS legislation. Various entity lobbies and consolidates federal agencies
likes ‘The Better Regulation Executive’ are tasked with an obligation to maintain these
standards since financial statements in various companies comply with various HS laws,
which is poses an excessive financial burden to workers. In that regard, this paper focusses to
discuss this rationale: imposition of Health and Safety Legislation that poses excessive
financial burden on industry. To further explore the topic, this essay will apply and examine
the methods used to analyse the compliance costs, including the associated legislation pieces
and case studies: The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) – (FSO) Order 2005 and the Control
of Substance Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) 2002. Moreover, this discussion
seeks to evaluate the issues connected to Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), which is relevant in
quantifying non-financial costs.
Key Terms and Specific Case Studies
The terminology ‘industry’ illustrates a wide-range of various companies in the world.
These companies range from sole proprietorship to large and extensive entities like
processing and manufacturing firms. Organizations such as schools, hospitals and charity
organizations are considered in the selection of ‘industries’ that should consider in the
measure of HS regulations. Through thorough evaluation of various-sized firms,
comprehensive evaluation of financial statements connected with the compliance to costs will
be considered, since this rational is proportionate to firms’ sizes (Adeyemo and Smallwood,
2017). The results of this research indicated that HS legislation is excessive for businesses.
Another term considered in this paper is the ‘Health and Safety (HS) Legislation, which
varies in various entities. In that regard, to emphatically substantiate if these regulations have

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a significant burden on firms, it is fundamental to apply, theoretically, these pieces of HS
laws in companies today. Considering the inclusion of a valuable evaluation, this paper
concentrates primarily on the implementation two vital UK legislation pieces i.e. the COSHH
and the FSO.
The COSHH and FSO case students present two fundamental pieces of the UK
legislations selected based on their significance to health and safety regulations
(“Hse.gov.uk”, 2019). With the application of two significant, but contrasting protocols, the
rationale concerning its effects on financial costs, which relatively influences the manner in
which companies comply with HS laws, is critically evaluated (Fivizzani, 2012). The
application of two contrasting laws, the research discussion concerning the burden on finance
of companies complying with HS laws is considerably evaluated. Moreover, these legislative
cases affect industries as indicated in this essay.
Comparative/Contrasting Case Studies Control of Substance Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) 2002
The COSHH represents statutory instrument, which is shaped with the HS at the
workplace Act 1974 (“Hse.gov.uk”, 2019). This legislation, implemented in 2002,
necessitates all the workers to control and safeguard any substances, which are harmful to the
health. The necessity to comply with this standard engages eight various phases. The
significant obligations of workers are to conduct a comprehensive risk evaluation, facilitating
the implementation of preventative actions and supervising or training workers. According to
the recent government research, which started in 2005, the rule burdens quantity evaluation
ranked in reference to COSHH, denoted as a significant and administrative piece of
regulation, which cost private firms over 171 million pounds. However, this valuation did
not include policy and accounting cost. Provided astronomical administrative costs to

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industries, this research have explored a critical research question, which has not been
answered in ABME research reflecting on compliance finances and how they pose excessive
financial burden on industries.
 The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) – (FSO) Order 2005
The FSO 2005 was implemented on Oct 2006, which was considered to simplify the
present fire safety regulations and fundamentally enhance to compliance of industries to
safety regulation (“Hse.gov.uk”, 2019). This legislation considers minimizing avoidable
deaths and fires, which relatively lead to loss of properties. Resultantly, this law necessitates
industries or managers of firms to consider applying safety actions to minimize fire risks and
maintain or implement critical precautions presented in this research. Assessed legislation
compliance costs have been tabulated by the government before this rule was brought to the
public. In that regard, this case helps to verify these estimated compliance costs tabulated in
the HSE’s Regulation Impact Assessments, which is aimed at determining if these
compliance costs are proven to pose a financial burden or benefits on industries today.
Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
The theories to be applied in this research are the CBA, anticipations/resilience and
safety economics. These conceptual and theoretical frameworks will be applied to critically
analyse the critical question concerning the individuals who are answerable and payable of
the eventual cost of the legislation for non-compliance. The individuals in question are
employers, the society and the workers. Moreover, logical and supportive UK HS
legislations, considering compliance perspectives will be evaluated considerably. These
concepts present a vital understanding of the rationale of firms being overburdened
excessively during the compliance to the HS legislation. Moreover, these theoretical aspects
will be utilized to signify that despite the fact that benefits and costs are challenging to