Our role in health and safety
Your employer has a legal duty to keep you safe at work. They must provide information and training to help you do your job safely.
What we can do
We are responsible for overseeing workplace standards in our district. This includes:
- offices (except government offices)
- shops
- hotels
- restaurants
- leisure premises
- nurseries and playgroups
- pubs and clubs
- museums (privately owned)
- places of worship
- sheltered accommodation and care homes
We’re impartial and work with employers and employees with the aim of making sure there are good health, safety and welfare standards in place.
Our work involves
- giving advice and information
- inspection of workplaces
- investigating accidents, dangerous situations, or outbreaks of industrial disease
- enforcement of the standards required by law, usually by advice, legal notice, and prosecution
We always try to ensure that our requirements are in proportion to the degree of risk to health or safety.
Inspections and inspector rights
Our health & safety inspectors have the right to enter work premises at any time. Inspectors do not normally make appointments and can visit without notice.
A schedule of inspections is carried out based on the national priority rating scheme.
For more information on what happens during an inspection, read our corporate enforcement and inspection policy
Health and Safety Executive
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) are the relevant enforcement agency for the following workplaces:
- factories
- farms
- building sites
- mines
- schools and colleges
- fairgrounds
- gas, electricity and water systems
- hospitals and nursing homes
- central and local government premises
- offshore installations