Safety Behind The Camera

Late last year (21st November 2023, 8:34 am) BBC Radio 4 had an interesting story about actors in the UK trying to fight for safer workplaces in the film industry. (Before joining CE Marking Ltd. I had undertaken a HND in Film and Television, so this story piqued my interest.)

No one can argue safer workplaces are not to be strived for. However, the reason we need to cover this now is due to the main question posed by this story: ‘Is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 outdated?’.

At first, I believed the answer to be an obvious yes; the Act was written just short of 50 years ago (at the time of writing there are 27 weeks to the 50th anniversary of the Act's authoring).

So why then has the Act not been replaced yet? Well, that’s because the Act gets updated, it was last updated on 31/12/2020, so the Act was only updated just over 3 years ago.

The second answer is a bit more complicated and requires an understanding of how law in the UK works.

In the UK we have three levels of law, Primary Legislation, Secondary Legislation and Standards. Primary Legislation is the Acts of Parliament – or Senedd in Wales. Secondary Legislation is the Statutory Instruments, Statutory Rules – these are Regulations- or Orders. Below these are the Standards. These all work in hand-in-hand, you cannot satisfy an Act without satisfying Regulations and you cannot satisfy the Regulations without applying Standards.

Therefore, the Health and Safety at Work Act should never be applied in isolation. When taken in conjunction with the other legislation that should be applied then the accidents mentioned in the story should not have happened.

So, the next question is ‘What are the applicable pieces of legislation?’.

In the case of a film set, many different pieces of legislation could be applied. This article will break down some of the legislation and standards that could (or should) be used on a film set.

To begin with, some pieces of legislation apply to every film set regardless of the specific details. The pieces of primary legislation that always apply are the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Worker Protection Act 2023 (which is an amendment of the Equality Act 2010) and the Films Act 1985 (which details whether a film classes as British, could allow for tax relief or monetary aid in some instances).

With just the primary legislation we have already got three pieces of legislation, two of which directly relate to worker safety. So, let’s continue to the secondary legislation.

The pieces of secondary legislation that apply to every film set are the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992 and the Corporation Tax (Taxation of Films) (Transactional Provisions) Regulations 2007 and the Industrial Training (Film Industry Board for England and Wales) Order 2007.

Now we have added in the secondary legislation we are up to six pieces of legislation with four directly tied to worker safety.

So, without even touching on the standards there are already plenty of stopgaps to prevent people from getting injured whilst working on a film set in the UK. Furthermore, all of these do not consider the actual equipment being used on the set!

To consider the equipment being used there is still legislation that needs to be applied before we can even start looking at the set itself. To cover a film set for the use of explosives and pyrotechnics the set now needs to comply with the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2015. For the use of lifting equipment (such as that used in the Fast and Furious film as detailed in this article from the HSE: https://press.hse.gov.uk/2023/11/24/company-fined-as-stunt-performer-sustains-life-changing-injuries-during-filming-of-fast-and-furious-film/ ) the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1989 should be applied. For any equipment on set that is machinery or electrical equipment, they must be treated as if they were being sold and be marked accordingly.

When looking at the set itself, to build the set the Construction Design Management Regulations 2019 should be applied.

To conclude, we should always strive for safer workplaces, however, when applying the legislation correctly these accidents should not happen. There are many instances of actors being injured at work and the companies should be held to account if the actor is injured at work, why was due process not followed to ensure the safety of staff?

If you would like to find out why the HSE decided the Millennium Falcon needed to be CE marked you can find the article on our LinkedIn page.

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