Anti-red tape campaign to be launched by Tories

The government will come under pressure to cut workplace health and safety regulations this autumn, Personnel Today has learned.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said he would campaign in the coming weeks to reduce employee welfare red tape.

"Every person in the country in a management or HR role that deals with regulation agrees there is too much red tape, that the system is too complicated," Grayling told Personnel Today.

"We're going to be doing some work during the course of this autumn on the health and safety environment to see what can be done to reduce the regulatory burden without compromising on safety standards."

A survey by the National Audit Office last week revealed government initiatives to reduce red tape had failed, with two in five employers saying compliance with laws had become more time consuming.

In 2007, more than 150 measures were implemented in a bid to cut 25% of the administrative burden by 2010.

Grayling also said that HR professionals who dealt with welfare-to-work schemes could expect more power if the Conservatives came to power.

"What you have had from the government over the past few years is an initiative here, an initiative there, and I don't want to replicate that," Grayling said. "I want us to have a much more simplified structure, without the government prescribing the programme a welfare-to-work system with contractors based geographically, dealing with a range of people with a range of needs, so we can say, 'you're the professionals, can you get on with it please?'."