Abstract/Summary

Most people would like to think that their job makes a useful contribution to society. Surely there are few things more worthwhile than ensuring that every worker goes home safely at the end of their shift? It comes as something of a shock, then, when members of the professions and organizations concerned with health and safety find themselves on the end of political and media criticism as lacking common sense and obstructing growth and competitiveness in UK industry. They may look back to a time when the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was passed, apparently with the support of a broad public and policy consensus. Now they are the object of reviews intended to remove ‘red tape’ and reduce the ‘burden’ of regulation. How did we get ‘here’ from ‘there’? What has happened over the last fifty years to undermine the view of the HSWA as a high-water mark of social progress? How has ‘elf ’n safety’ come to be treated with derision? What can the health and safety professions and organizations learn from that experience to help them develop appropriate policies in the future?