CHAPTER ONE
Inspections and other contacts with Workplaces

Part 2: Analysis of Different Types of Contacts

Table 4 looks at the numbers of each of the different types of contact over a five-year period. It shows that there have been considerable increases in the numbers of contacts relating to investigation (44%), enforcement (46%), education (143%) and advice (33%), whilst at the same time a very large decrease in the number of inspections (41%).

TABLE 4
Numbers of Different ‘Types of Contact’, (1996/7 – 2000/01)

The four main contact types are ‘inspection’, ‘enforcement’, ‘investigation’ and ‘advice’, and Tables 5 and 6 address how these four particular types of contact have changed in different industries between 1996/7 and 2000/01. It is interesting to note that although in 1996/7 both the Construction and Manufacturing sectors have a similar number of inspections (around 35,000), by 2000/01 the number of inspections in Construction had decreased by over 50% (over 19,000 inspections) which was over twice the reduction in the number of inspection contacts in Manufacturing. One might expect that as a result there would be a corresponding difference in the number of investigation contacts, but in fact there has been more of an increase in the number of investigations in Manufacturing (43%) compared to Construction (35%).

Of further note is that whilst the number of ‘advice’ contacts has decreased in Construction by 16%, they have increased in Manufacturing by 59%.

It is also notable that whilst there has been a similar percentage increase in the number of ‘enforcement’ contacts in Construction, Manufacturing, Energy/Extractive and Service sectors of around 50%, there has been an increase of just 0.2% (an increase of 4 contacts) in Agriculture.

Table 5
Number of ‘Inspection’ and ‘advice’ contacts by Industry, (1996/7 – 2000/01)

Table 6
Number of ’Investigation’ and ‘Enforcement’ contacts by Industry, (1996/7 – 2000/01)

Table 7 and 8 indicate how four main contact types - ‘inspection’, ‘enforcement’, ‘investigation’ and ‘advice’ - have changed in different HSE areas between 1996/7 and 2000/01. It is notable that the reduction in inspection contacts varies widely from one area to another, so that whilst in South there was a reduction of 1,070 (18%) inspections (62.7%), in South Yorkshire there was a reduction of 3,335 (63%) inspections. In addition the South did have a higher increase in the number of ‘advice’ contacts than South Yorkshire.

The increase in the number of investigation contacts also varies from one HSE area to another so that whilst Scotland East has an increase in 84.9% (an extra 2,082), North and West Yorkshire only had an increase in 0.3% (8 extra contacts).

Table 7
Number of ‘Inspection’ and ‘Advice’ contacts by HSE Area, (1996/7 – 2000/01)

Table 8
Number of ’Investigation’ and ‘Enforcement’ contacts by HSE Area, (1996/7 – 2000/01)

The data from Tables 7 and 8 is collapsed and presented in summary form in Table 9. Here it becomes clear that inspections have declined quite dramatically across areas, whilst there have been general increases in the numbers of investigations and ‘advice’ contacts. However, there is no clear relationship between these changes. For example, while Marches has seen the greatest decline in numbers of inspections (-3942), the simultaneous increase in investigation and advice are relatively small. North and West Yorkshire and North East both saw similar declines in the numbers of inspections (2,333 and 2,330 respectively) – yet there are significant differences between their increases in numbers of investigations and advice. Perhaps by contrast, in Scotland East there has been the highest increases in both investigation and advice and the third largest decline in inspections.

Table 9
Changes in the levels of contacts over a five year period by HSE area

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