It found that people were confused about the differences between:

  Guidance, Approved Codes of Practice and Regulations

And how they relate to each other.

Guidance

Guidance can be specific to the health and safety problems of an industry or of a particular process used in a number of industries.

                        The main purposes of guidance are:  

■ to interpret helping people to understand what the law says including for example how requirements based on EC Directives fit with those under the Health and Safety at Work Act;

■ to help people comply with the law;

to give technical advice

                        Approved Codes of Practice

Approved Codes of Practice offer practical examples of good practice. They give advice on how to comply with the law by, for example, providing a guide to what is ‘reasonably practicable’. For example, if regulations use words like ‘suitable and sufficient’, an Approved Code of Practice can illustrate what this requires in particular circumstance. Approved Codes of Practice have a special legal status. If employers are prosecuted for a breach of health and safety law, and it is proved that they have not followed the relevant provisions of the Approved Code of Practice, a court can find them at fault unless they can show that they have complied with the law in some other way

                        Regulation

 The Health and Safety at Work Act, and general duties in the Management Regulations, are goal-setting and leave employers freedom to decide how to control risks which they identify. Guidance and Approved Codes of Practice give advice. But some risks are so great, or the proper control measures so costly, that it would not be appropriate to leave employers discretion in deciding what to do about them. Regulations identify these risks and set out specific action that must be taken. Often these requirements are absolute to do something without qualification by whether it is reasonably practicable. 

European law

                         European law

In recent years much of Britain’s health and safety law has originated in Europe. Proposals from the European Commission may be agreed by Member States, who are then responsible for making them part of their domestic law. Modern health and safety law in this country, including much of that from Europe, is based on the principle of risk assessment.

Health and safety regulation

Health and safety regulation

 The Health and Safety regulatory bodies must make a review of health and safety regulation in Saudi Arabia to reduce the hazard in workplace and improve the health and safety legislation.

What health and safety law requires

The Act sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, and employees have to themselves and to each other. These duties are qualified in the Act by the principle of ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. In other words, an employer does not have to take measures to avoid or reduce the risk if they are technically impossible or if the time, trouble or cost of the measures would be grossly disproportionate to the risk. What the law requires here is what good management and common sense would lead employers to do anyway: that is, to look at what the risks are and take sensible measures to tackle them. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations generally make more explicit what employers are required to do to manage health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Like the Act, they apply to every work activity. The main requirement on employers is to carry out a risk assessment. Employers with five or more employees need to record the significant findings of the risk assessment.

What is training?

What is training?
 Training means helping people to learn how to do something, telling people what they should or should not do, or simply giving them information. Training isn’t just about formal ‘classroom’ courses and obtaining ‘tickets’.

Why provide health and safety training?

Providing health and safety information and training helps you to:

■ Ensure that people who work for you know how to work safely and without risks to health;

■ Develop a positive health and safety culture, where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone;

■ Meet your legal duty to protect the health and safety of your employees.