Meeting Targets for Health and Safety: Analysis of Administrative and Survey Data

In the document Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement (DETR, 2000), the government set out national targets for health and safety. Included within these targets is to achieve a 10% reduction in the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 2010. Initial assessments indicate that no discernible improvement in this indicator has occurred since the baseline year. The aim of this paper is to explore factors that influence the incidence of workplace injuries and to consider their potential role in determining whether national targets for health and safety will be met. Analysis of aggregate injury data from administrative sources reveals that reportable workplace injury rates moved procyclically around a downward trend during the period 1986 to 1997. Analysis of individual level data from the LFS however indicates that it is changes in the occupational composition of employment that underpin changes in workplace injury rates overtime. Having controlled for a range of personal and job characteristics, analysis of the LFS does not indicate the presence of any sustained reduction in the risk of workplace injury during the period 1993 to 2000. Forecasts of injury rates based upon detailed projection of employment by occupation indicate that reportable workplace injury rates are expected to decline by 4-6% by 2010. Favorable shifts in the occupational composition of employment call into question the value of over-arching targets for achieving real improvements in health and safety at the workplace.