HSE Effectiveness and regulations world wide

This study about " implementing HSE and the effectiveness of the regulations in the world wide construction and manufacturing projects "

Actually; a growing body of this research very little is known, it is all about how and why interventions by regulators influence the compliance and the work health and safety outcomes for several type of projects.

Perhaps; much of the limited information that is available has been obtained from previous international studies, with almost no published information available on the effectiveness of the work health and safety regulatory intervention in several type of industries worldwide.

 Exactly by understanding why interventions work in terms of how they influence the internal factors that motivate businesses compliance behavior or mechanisms, regulators can design interventions that more precisely focus on influencing these mechanisms in order to increase compliance.

Well; in this technical paper we can realize that by understanding for whom they work and in what circumstances, regulators can tailor their interventions to accommodate different subgroups of businesses, for example, different size businesses and different industry sectors.

While; this review aims to identify possible mechanisms that may explain why interventions by regulators influence compliance and work health and safety outcomes, for whom and in what circumstances.

However; the review outcomes should not be considered as definitive. Rather, they can inform thinking about the design and evaluation of future interventions.

Moreover; interventions by work health and safety regulators are the key points found in the literature review. While; the observed study outcomes suggest that the introduction of new regulations will lead to changes in safety practice and ultimately to changes in work health and safety outcomes for those businesses that:

• See themselves as being in an industry with significant hazards
• Are larger businesses, and ? Can interpret and apply the regulations to their specific circumstances. Work health and safety interventions are thought to trigger mechanisms within businesses that affect work health and safety behaviors and compliance with regulation.

In fact; this review identifies several key mechanisms including:

• Awareness of requirements
• Businesses’ understanding of what they need to do to comply
• Concern for reputation, and ? perception of their level of risk. It appears that the effects of these mechanisms are modified by a number of context factors:
• Large businesses are more likely to understand what they need to do in order to comply
• Large businesses are more likely to be concerned about reputation, and ? businesses that perceive themselves as operating in a high risk sector are more likely to attend to new regulations as they are introduced.

The pattern of results observed suggests that inspections:

• Are more likely to lead to improved work health and safety outcomes for small businesses and for those with no prior experience of inspections
• May reduce the severity of injuries rather than the overall injury rate, and ? that include penalties may be more effective for medium and large businesses. The key mechanisms leading to inspections producing changes in work health and safety outcomes are:
• Drawing managers’ attention to the issue of safety overall
• Enabling businesses to understand what they need to do in order to comply, and ? the potential for damage to businesses’ reputation associated with being the subject of enforcement.

Perhaps; eight large businesses are more likely to be concerned about damage to their reputation whereas the major challenge for small business may be to understand what they need to do in order to comply.

Prosecutions serve several functions including satisfying the community expectations around the investigation and punishment of wrongdoing as well as deterring others from offending.

Exactly; the treatment of work health and safety cases in the courts and the outcomes are likely to influence how prosecution of work health and safety offences serves both of these functions. while only a very small number of studies on the impact of prosecutions were located. And the results always suggest that prosecutions have a small general deterrent effect. Weather large businesses are more likely to be able to understand and interpret court decisions and how they could apply to their own business.

In fact; both low average penalties imposed by courts in different countries for work health and safety offences and the focus in the court cases on the specifics of the particular events leading up to the death or injury that led to the prosecution may act to limit the deterrent effect of work health and safety suing.

While; very little evidence is available internationally regarding the effectiveness of guidance material! What evidence is available suggests that guidance may be, or it could be more effective for those who already have a good understanding and practices of what they need to do in order to comply to the guidelines available.

 Since; large businesses are more likely to be aware of guidance material and to follow the safety practices in the guidance material always. And the available evidence on whether campaigns lead to changes in safety practice and/or work health and safety outcomes for the targeted groups is very limited indeed.

 Perhaps; there is always some evidence that campaigns are more effective when they include a mix of education and enforcement. Actually; this suggests that industry campaigns by the regulator may change businesses safety practice through managers’ understanding of what they actually need to do to comply and their concern for consequences.

However; social marketing techniques that apply marketing principles to social good issues have been used in campaigns in other areas such as the public health but there has been little application in work health and safety in fact. Overall evidence of effectiveness is very limited. There is some evidence that enforceable undertakings (EUs) are effective in changing the safety practices of businesses. But there is no evidence available on how they compare with court proceedings or in what types of businesses EUs are and are not effective.

May be the EUs bring about change in the safety practice of businesses by:

• Their perceived authority as binding legal agreements
• getting managers to take ownership of required improvements to safety practice, and ? making managers understand the consequences of harms that past practice has caused. Therefore; there is evidence that in some circumstances voluntary partnerships and incentives can be an effective way of changing businesses behavior. Voluntary partnerships and incentive schemes are more likely to be effective in changing the behavior where:
• There is a high level of trust between business and the regulator, and ? business can see an advantage in taking part. While there is no evidence available regarding which businesses these schemes are effective for?

Policy implications

 There are three broad areas for consideration can be identified from the review:

1. Small and large businesses could benefit from separate models for regulation:

• Small businesses provide access to individual support and advice services. While the aim for this group would be to be responsive in supporting them to move to compliance while retaining enforcement when compliance remains an issue.
• Large businesses provide a high level of access to information and minimal interference by the regulator. The aim for this group would be to support existing compliance while responding harshly to non-compliance.

1. The compliance and enforcement policies can support the perceived duty to obey the law by emphasizing procedural justice.
2. The specific changes that could enable improvement of the effectiveness of interventions by work health and safety regulators include:

 a- Making clear to business and particularly large business the consequences of noncompliance, especially loss of reputation. The objective is for businesses to clearly understand that punishment and other consequences of non-compliance are a result of their own choices and actions and not because the regulator is being heavy handed                                                                                                             b- Considering restorative justice approaches for both small and large businesses in certain circumstances rather than proceeding to the court system c- Treating guidance material as a policy intervention and building evaluation into the development cycle, and e- enforceable undertakings show potential as an alternative to court proceedings to change the behavior of businesses.

Introduction

In fact we do not know 100 percent whether many of the strategies we already used on a regular basis by work health and safety regulators, such as:

- Introducing regulations, conducting inspections, imposing penalties for non-compliance and running industry campaigns are really effective in achieving the desired policy outcome of reducing work related deaths, injuries and disease.

But to enable them to develop and use evidence-based policy work health and safety regulators need to know what actually works. Therefore; the strategies that work health and safety regulators use can be regarded as ways of intervening in the workplace to achieve the policy outcomes.                                        Specifically these strategies provide businesses, managers and workers with resources, incentives and punishments with the aim of changing their behavior at work. The outcome of interventions such as this depends on the choices that businesses, managers and workers make in response to the resources, incentives and punishments provided. And that is all because of the choices that businesses, managers and workers make are dependent on a large, complex and variable set of factors in practice interventions by regulators will usually be effective for some members of the target industry in some situations but not others (Pawson 2006).

A study by Wright et al. (2005) who actually investigated the motivations for businesses to comply with work health and safety regulations. Wright et al. concluded that the key drivers of compliance include:

• Enforcement of regulation and consequent fear of both business disruption and risk to reputation ? the financial incentive provided by insurance premiums, and ? the moral implications of non-compliance. For each of different types of interventions the review develops explanations for why the interventions lead to changes in outcomes, and for whom and in what circumstances:

1. Introducing new regulations
2. Conducting inspections
3. Prosecutions
4. Guidance materials
5. Industry campaigns
6. Enforceable undertakings
7. Voluntary partnerships and 8. Incentive schemes.

 This review had been undertook to develop the explanatory models for why interventions work for whom and in what circumstances. Actually; the reason for undertaking this job was to provide the practical guidance to assist and help the policy makers in designing and implementing the interventions. This review have attempted to synthesize explanations for why each of the different intervention strategies listed above lead to changes in work health and safety outcomes, for whom and in what circumstances these explanations or mechanisms are already applied. While the final section aims to bring together the explanations developed in order to identify what kinds of intervention strategies would be expected to lead to changes in outcomes for different sub groups of businesses in different situations.

It is appropriate to acknowledge the limitations of this review. While the primary limitation is the paucity of available research on intervention effectiveness within the work health and safety domain.                                          In addition, most published research on intervention effectiveness in work health and safety has focused on whether or not interventions work and paid no attention to developing explanations for how or why they are working.                                                                                                                                                                          Actually; these limitations have been addressed by drawing on international research and studies evaluating similar interventions outside the work health and safety such as the environmental protection and food safety. While the other major limitation of the body of research is the shortage of evidence about impact of the circumstances on effectiveness of the regulatory interventions. Taking into consideration the actual limitations of these evidences are based on this section aims to answer two questions in fact:

1. Which one of the mechanisms and intervention strategies work for whom?
2. How do the circumstances influence the ways that those intervention strategies lead to changes in safety outcomes?

Whereas; Table 1 below shows a summary view of the relationships between the intervention strategies, the available mechanisms and the exact context in which the strategy is implemented. The relationships had been summarized in the table represent a potential explanation of the findings reviewed in the previous sections.

Meanwhile; the second column sets out those aspects of context in which strategies are implemented that may influence the mechanisms triggered.

And the third column sets out mechanisms identified that explain why intervention has an impact on businesses behavior at the end. The table suggests that as well as the unique mechanisms associated with each one of these strategy there are a common set of mechanisms across strategies. These include:                 ? Concern for reputation                                                                                                       ? Understanding what is need to comply, and ? how the authority of the law is perceived. The operation and relevance of these mechanisms differs between groups of businesses. For example, large businesses may be more concerned about and responsive to things that could influence their reputation. In contrast the primary consideration for small businesses is likely to be their understanding of what they need to do in order to comply with.

Policy implications

The aim of this technical review was to develop some of the overall guidelines to assist the regulators with the design and implementation of future interventions required to develop the business. Rather than providing some specific rules about which interventions to be used or for whom and when, the results suggest an approach that is responsive to the particular group or circumstance.Taking into consideration the results suggest some key questions to consider in the design and implementation of interventions.

 For regulations, inspections, guidance materials, prosecutions and campaigns key questions include:

1. Does the target group for the required intervention comprise predominantly the large or small businesses or a mix of both of them? Small and large business could potentially benefit from different models of regulation. While for large businesses a model emphasizing easy access to the information and strict enforcement of non-compliance may be more effective.                                                                                                                               For small business a more appropriate model may be to provide most with extensive information and support to enable them to become compliant. Enforcement should be reserved for more serious violations and those businesses that are not willing to work with the regulator.
2. What is the attitude of the target group towards the regulator? If the businesses have a negative attitude towards the regulator they may be less likely to comply. The adoption of responsive regulation can enable the regulator to shift business attitudes towards the regulator. For voluntary partnerships and incentive schemes key questions include:

1. What is the level of trust between the industry sector and the regulator?       ? If there is a low level of trust schemes may not be taken up by industry.       ? Consider how trust may be built and the sources of trust.                                There are several factors that work in combination: the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulator; industries’ view about what they will get out of the interaction; whether the regulator cares about the best interests of the group.
2. What is known about incentives that would be valued by industry and how will the value of participation be clear to industry? ? Consider how partnerships schemes can clearly show the value of participation.                      ? Conduct research to determine which incentives are valued by which industries. There is very little information available on the:                               ? effectiveness of any regulatory interventions                                                       ? impact of circumstances such as the economic climate on the effectiveness of work health and safety interventions, and ? effectiveness of prosecutions, guidance material, enforceable undertakings and incentives and voluntary partnership schemes. These information gaps need filling to have any clarity about why interventions work, for whom and in what circumstances.