HR is vital to reduce health and safety disasters warns work and pensions secretary

Work and pensions secretary James Purnell has warned chief executives that good people management is vital to avoid disasters such as the Buncefield oil explosion.

Purnell told high level delegates at a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) conference in Westminster yesterday that they had to be confident in their staff’s ability to stop major incidents happening.

“Having a well trained, fully committed workforce is vital,” he said. “They will know how to spot the warning signs, and how to prevent them becoming major incidents.”

Purnell added that high health and safety standards depended on strong leadership from the top of an organisation.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Email

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

More than 200 people are killed at work in the UK each year, according to the HSE.

The explosions at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot in Hertfordshire on Sunday 11 December 2005 injured more than 40 people and the smoke covered much of the South of England for days.