INSPECTION CUTS

Plans to limit on-the-spot safety inspections could lead to more workplace deaths and injuries, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) says. The warning follows the release of a draft code by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, laying out proposals aimed at reducing bureaucracy. Although workplace deaths have risen by 11% in the last year, the draft code proposes that random inspection should only be a small element of testing processes. Richard Jones, IOSH’s director of technical affairs, says: “In some of the poorest workplaces, an inspector’s visit ‘out of the blue’ may be the workers only hope of improvement.”