The government is being driven by the unions – who want more regulations and heavier enforcement. This means that company directors are getting more specific and actual duties, instead of implied duties as before. The increase in legislation is tying things down further.
What we should be looking at is having the least number of regulations possible. This is not a dream; if you examine the current mass of regulations you’ll find they are repeated with the same requirements presented in many different forms in relation to different aspects of the running of a safe and healthy business.
Increasing regulations means increasing the means to enforce them – this is a cost to both the government bodies responsible for doing so (indirectly the tax payer) and a cost to the businesses who frantically try to comply with the latest batch of regulations without realising that much of the required compliance is already in place. Many businesses waste a massive amount of time, money and manpower reinventing the wheel.
What the government should be doing instead of issuing yet more regs is to review what is there and reduce the number of regulations, simplify and streamline those in existence to allow businesses to get on with their core business. Health and safety is important, but should be used to drive the profit line, not to bleed it.
