A study by the Centre for Crime and Justice has criticised the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for ‘burying’ work-related fatality figures.
The report’s authors claim that more than 80% of officially recorded work-related fatalities are “filtered out from the HSE’s headline figure and remain buried in other categories in the official data”.
In 2006-2007, the HSE recorded a total of 241 fatalities suffered by workers in the UK. However, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies puts the figure at 1,400. With the murder rate at just 765 in 2005, this means there is more chance of dying at work than in an act of violence.
As a result of its findings, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is pushing for government recognition of ‘safety crimes’ in the workplace.
In an introduction to the study authors Rebecca Roberts and Will McMahon wrote: “In our view, ‘organisational violence’ in the form of safety crimes is clearly worthy of greater acknowledgement owing to the harm caused and the context in which they occur.”
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