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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published its annual statistics on work-related ill health and workplace injuries. The figures also show that 135 workers were killed in work-related accidents in 2022/23, while 561,000 workers sustained a self-reported non-fatal injury in the workplace during the same period.

The statistics reveal that 1.8 million workers reported they were suffering from work-related ill health in 2022/23, an estimated 875,000 down to stress, depression or anxiety. Which is higher than the pre-pandemic level.

In the recent years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of self-reported work-related ill health had been broadly flat, but the current rate is higher than 2018/19.

An estimated 35.2 million working days were lost in 2022/23 due to self-reported work-related ill health or injury.

HSE’s statistics also reveal the impact that the work-related ill health and workplace injuries are having on Britain’s economic performance. Preventing or tackling work-related stress can provide significant benefits to employees, improving their experience of work and their overall health; and also to employers including increased productivity, decreased absenteeism and reduced staff turnover

In 2021/22, the estimated annual costs of workplace injury and new cases of work-related ill health reached £20.7 billion, representing a £1.9 billion increase compared with 2019/20.

Building your own Mini-Greenhouse can be a Fun and Educational Experience, As well as a rewarding one. Especially if you’re good with tools. If you are using a Greenhouse To Initiate Transplants or Grow Plants To Maturity, The greenhouse should be located in an area that will receive the most sunlight and a well-Ventilated area. Avoid building greenhouses In low-lying areas surrounded by buildings or forests. Also, consider easy access to water, and for a small Greenhouse Watering System.

Regardless of the type and size of Greenhouse you choose, consider how long the system will last. Greenhouse Environments can be Maintained with little maintenance, with Ventilation, Heating, Humidity, Artificial Lighting, Irrigation, Etc. For plants that are easy to maintain.

There are many Ready-Made Greenhouses available for purchase or Build your own with a very simple frame. However, making sure that you use licensed Plumbers and Electricians.

Here Are Some Tips To Help You Build And Design A Small Greenhouse.

1. Start with a medium Design and use readily available Materials. An attractive Greenhouse for using Recycled Materials such as reclaimed wood, doors, and window frames.
2. Adapt to the local climate.
3. Plan a design that can use standard sizes of Materials, most of which come in “4x”.
4. Timers and Thermostats can be set to Control exactly the heating or lighting.
5. Design and Build “Backup” facilities in case of power outages or severe weather.
6. To use Wood- Cedar, Cypress or plain Wood (pressure-treated lumber) and painted works well. This is the efficient and cost-effective Material.
7. Greenhouses often use “Glass Panels”, But Polycarbonate Plastic, Fiberglass, Plastic Sheeting or Acrylic can be used.
8. A Permanent Foundation is recommended to support the structure, (but a Floor is not really necessary). A bottom of Gravel a few inches deep provides adequate drainage. A smooth stone or concrete Walkway between the seats provides a stable surface.
9. Greenhouse Design should allow ample space for Tall Plants, and the Plants will only be Occupying Half of the “Two-Thirds” of the Greenhouse Area, leaving the rest for Relaxation and Work Areas.
10. No Overwatering! One of the biggest mistakes new Greenhouse Gardeners make is overwatering. A drip small greenhouse watering system Is Ideal. Use only Room-Temperature Water.
11. For your Comfort, the Planters can be Designed High enough so that you won’t have to bend when tending to the Plants/Fruits/Flowers or Vegetables.

Around 50 firefighters were called to respond to a flat fire on the 11^th floor of a high-rise in Coventry caused by an e-bike battery setting alight.

The West Midlands Fire & Rescue Service (WMFS)

Several fire engines and response vehicles also attended the blaze in Coventry, where several people were evacuated while others were able to remain safely in their homes.

The fire affected the whole flat in which it broke out, with smoke spreading to floors above. No casualties have been reported, but the damage to the flat was described as ‘severe’.

The WMFS found the cause of the fire to have resulted from an electric bike battery being left on charge.

Like other Fire and Rescue Services, WMFS has previously warned of the dangers of lithium-ion battery fires and has asked for people to exercise caution when charging e-bikes.

The Scottish Government will consult on banning single-use vapes next year, due to concerns about their impact on public health and the environment as they become more popular.

The Scottish Government Programme sets out the nation’s policy priorities for the coming year, which include the environment as well as childcare, healthcare and economic growth.

Disposable vapes, are a threat to both public health and the environment. As they are hard to recycle as they contain multiple different kinds of plastics, plus an internal battery. Around 13 million disposable vapes were incorrectly disposed of within the past year, including 2.6 million that were littered.

The environment evidence is undeniable – from litter on the streets, to the risk of fires in waste facilities. A potential ban will start early 2024, after consultation with retailers, manufacturers and other stakeholders are contacted.

Employers are increasingly likely to go unpunished after workplace accidents, according to research by Prospect Union that reveals the number of investigations dropped by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) due to insufficient resources has surged.

The research, using HSE’s own figures, shows that in 2016/17 just two mandatory investigations were cancelled because of insufficient resources compared to in 2021/22 the figure was 389.

Overall cash funding for HSE fell dramatically from £228m in 2010 to £126m in 2019. There has been a recovery since then to £185m in 2022. The long-term cash decline and overall significant real-terms funding decline (current funding is still 43% below 2010 once one-off ringfenced payments are taken into account) have left the HSE with a staffing and skills crisis that will be difficult to overcome.

The COVID-19 pandemic really highlighted that if you want safe workplaces then you need to have an effective regulator in place with sufficient skills and capacity to inspect workplaces and hold employers to account. If appropriate levels of inspections and mandatory investigations are not happening, half of them because of a lack of resources, then that should worry anyone who values safety at work. The bottom line is that if effective investigations cannot be carried out then those who are at fault for an accident may get away with it, depriving victims of justice and making workplaces less safe.

The evidence suggests that most businesses have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to manage safety risk for themselves. The maturity of business and their increased level of understanding of safety risks means that the HSE can look to regulate in different ways.

Businesses will be left more and more to self-regulate.

They will not be routinely inspected to make sure they comply. Instead, they will be “engaged” through the likes of call centres, digital platforms and social media campaigns.

Although current available digital tools are more sophisticated, this approach has been criticised by previous select committee examinations of HSE.

A property owner has been prosecuted after they failed to carry out a structural assessment, leading to life-changing injuries to a builder.

A stone wall collapsed on builder, while he was converting some outbuildings into a holiday let accommodation in October 2021. He suffered several injuries including a fractured skull, bleed on the brain, and multiple broken bones.

As part of the planning for the project, the property owner had not carried out a structural assessment of the outbuildings. The investigation from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed that a structural assessment of the outbuildings had not been conducted before starting work, and there was no plan in place for dismantling the building safely.

The property owner, pleaded guilty to breaching the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations SI 2015/51, and was given a 12-month community order and told to complete 80 hours of unpaid work. He must pay costs of £4,097.94.

In Summary If this project had been planned effectively, engaging the right people at the right time to ensure a suitable safe system of work was implemented, the life-changing injuries sustained by the injured person could have been prevented.

What is the difference in these two terms and what will be required in the new Greenhouse Gas Emissions standard ISO 14068?

PAS 2060, a Publicly Available Specification that has been used as a guideline for demonstrating carbon neutrality, makes it clear that carbon neutral should be used to mean all scopes not just scope 1 & 2 (fuels burned on site and in vehicles and electricity consumption). However there has been a growing habit over recent years to use “carbon neutral” to mean just operational emissions – ignoring the value chain (scope 3) even though for most companies between 70 and 95% of their emissions are from the value chain.

To be truly carbon neutral, a company needs to reduce emissions from all sources as much as possible and then offset or actively remove the remainder.

Net Zero uses the same concept but at a larger scale, aiming for emissions from all sources to be reduced as much as possible and the remainder mitigated through removals from the atmosphere. These could be through supporting natural systems which sequester carbon (forest, peat, wetlands, seagrass, etc) or through technology like carbon capture and storage and buried solid carbon sinks.

The implementation of new Greenhouse Gas Emissions standard ISO 14068 ensures that emissions from all scopes are considered.

In summary, a company that is carbon neutral is also net zero (calculated on a year-by-year basis), as in both cases the tracking of carbon emissions and removals need to match.

Employee theft has jumped by a fifth (19%) as the rising cost of living triggers a wave of workplace crime, new data suggests.  

National figures based on Freedom of Information data from 43 police forces in England and Wales.  Reveals almost 6,000 workers were caught stealing from their employer in 2022, up from 5,000 the year before. This amounts to nearly 500 incidents every month. 

The biggest increase in thefts occurred in Lincolnshire, up from 40 to 71 incidents – a rise of 44%.  By police force, the highest rate of employee theft was recorded in Northamptonshire, with 43 incidents per 100,000 people, while the lowest was found in Dorset. 

Ranges of employee theft

Employee theft ranges from petty pilfering of office supplies to the theft of data and embezzlement of company funds. 

Recent claims include a £150,000 theft by a ring of employees at a food manufacturer and a £50,000 claim from a double-glazing firm defrauded by its finance manager.

As cost-of-living pressures mount, employee theft has significantly increased, suggesting some workers could be turning to desperate measures to make ends meet. These consequences of employee theft can be devastating for companies, resulting in reduced profits, lower staff morale and in extreme cases, even bankruptcy. Consumers also lose out through higher prices.

No business is immune to theft in the workplace, which can go undetected for years, and occur at all levels. Unless firms have the right protection in place, they have little chance of recovering stolen cash and goods, and may face other expenses, such as regulatory fines.  

Reducing the risk

Firms can reduce the risk of employee theft by implementing robust payment controls, regular audits, and a positive work culture.

Fraudsters are using ever more sophisticated techniques to trick employees into divulging sensitive information. So making it crucial that employers have robust security measures in place, alongside effective cyber awareness training to help staff detect and avoid these scams.

A recent YouGov poll showed that staff well-being is falling down the list of priorities for employers, with statistics showing:

• only a third of employers see improving staff morale as their responsibility;
• one in four employers spend nothing on employee well-being or mental health;
• 58% spend less than £100 per employee on well-being a year.

The survey of 1009 British companies and 2009 staff, was conducted last December and revealed that most employers saw attracting and retaining talent, and improving productivity, as their main priority.

Since the pandemic, most staff said they had returned to normal working practices, with fewer than half reporting that they still had the option of flexible working, including being able to work from home and to choose when they work.

Only 2% of employees said they felt confident about going to their boss if they had a problem in their personal life or with their finances, whilst only 1% would talk to a work colleague. More people said they would research their issue online before going to their line manager with an issue.

The survey followed a publication by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which showed worrying levels of in-work poverty. It said employers should be doing more to ease the pressure on staff facing financial difficulties, including offering flexible working and more secure shifts, creating a compassionate workplace culture, and signposting employees to specialist support. Employers who don’t invest in employee wellbeing may be missing out on the productivity benefits it can provide.

The survey showed that the size of businesses, where they are in the country, and what sector they are in, determined how much, if any, support employers provided. Age also played a part, with demand for support with the cost of living most marked among young employees.

While the demand for mental health and well-being services among staff was high, particularly for stress and anxiety and the cost-of-living crisis, a significant number of workers said they received little or no support from bosses, or the services that were provided were not always of value to them.

By listening to, and understanding what employees need, companies can start to build stronger, more empathetic and productive work environments. Access to well-being support should not be a lottery or a privilege.