Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the functioning of the Offshore Installations (Safety Representatives and Safety Committees) Regulations 1989 since January 2020.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its Workforce Engagement Inspection Guide in 2018. A key objective of the Inspection Guide is to help inspectors to assess compliance with the Offshore Installations (Safety Representatives and Safety Committees) Regulations 1989, SI 971, during their inspections. The Guide was developed by HSE’s Workforce Engagement Specialist Inspector. Since January 2020 to date 41 inspections have been carried out using the Inspection guide.

The inspections assessed compliance against the inspection guide and of those inspections 4 were rated as being good; 29 were broadly compliant and 8 were deemed poor. Where non-compliance issues were found, duty holders were informed by letter of what they needed to do. HSE then monitored progress with them to ensure compliance.