Follow this blogHSE Website: Best Before 2012?
I was alarmed to read reports this week that the UK Health & Safety Executive’s website may soon be axed, to be absorbed in some form or other into the government’s universal website, DirectGov. For many faced with the task of resolving health and safety issues in the workplace, the HSE website is a vital source of guidance covering 86 different work activities across 58 industries. In addition it provides a focal point for consultation and development of new standards and guidance.
If confirmed, the HSE website will become a victim of a wider cull of central government websites initiated by a review of 820 websites undertaken by the lastminute.com founder Martha Lane Fox. The project targets savings of £65M, already half of the websites have been closed and only 134 have been given approval to continue. Whether the HSE’s website is within this 134 is not entirely clear, however an HSE spokesman told me “There are no current plans to close down HSE’s website and it remains an important resource for both employers and employees.”
The HSE has developed its website significantly since its last relaunch in June 2009, restructuring the content to assist navigation, with each major hazard area having its own micro-site. Much of this work was prompted by a government review that identified ways in which the burden of health and safety regulation could be reduced*. In response^ the HSE has improved the opening up of information through the website and made its guidance documents and codes of practice, that were previously chargeable, available free to download. The structure of the site is simple, with clear links to resources, toolkits and external sources. It’s not perfect of course; the search facility seems to produce haphazard results and despite efforts to simplify content there is still a little too much jargon. Importantly, unlike many central government websites, it achieves high levels of user satisfaction (see below).
DirectGov is the government’s official website for the general public, providing ‘information for the public together in one place’. As such it gets over 29 million visits a month, providing information on topics including motoring, money, employment, education, disability etc. Whilst its intentions may be good, its execution is not without criticism. A review of DirectGov by the watchdog Consumer Focus identified a number of failings; too much information, poor navigation, search difficulties and an unintuitive user interface. In contrast to the HSE’s website being carefully tailored to the needs of a specific audience, DirectGov is very much a ‘one-size fits all’ solution.
Should plans change the loss of a customised website that is successfully providing access to a huge variety of technical information across a wide audience would be keenly felt. Factor in the recent closure of the HSE Infoline and removal of HSE field office phone numbers this would be another backward step in helping businesses access authoritative advice. Whilst cost is undoubtedly important in times of austerity, in this particular case it would be a false economy. Fingers crossed that common sense prevails.
Footnote: whilst researching this blog I discovered a new ‘son of DirectGov’ is currently being developed. The alpha test version already contains links to 172 tools on its main browser page!
*Better Regulation Executive, Effective inspection and enforcement: implementing the Hampton vision in the Health & Safety Executive, BRE Report 08/649, March 2008
^Health & Safety Executive, BRE Report on HSE’s Hampton Implementation review, HSE Board paper HSE/08/03, April 2008
Cabinet Office Website Metrics: Central Government Websites 2010/11 – Health and Safety Executive
72.9% Got most or all of what I needed
81.7% Satisfied or very satisfied
91.2% Good or very good ease of use
86.0% Good or very good design
79.8% Good or very good ease of finding
89.8% Good or very good editorial
91.2% Good or very good accuracy
83.8% Good or very good search
92.7% would definitely or probably recommend
5 Comments for this entry
John Hamilton
Got to agree Les, I think perhaps someone in government should dust down the Robens Report and remind themselves why the HSE was established in the first place!
Ian Hutchings
I just hope that this isn’t true or the website will be continually improved. We frequently refer small businesses to the HSE tools when they call us asking to pay to have a policy and risk assessments. Some small businesses really benefit from this, it saves them money and in the end hopefully prevents people getting hurt. I wonder who the government is consulting with on these proposed changes?
Martin Moy
As mentioned already the HSE website is an invaluable tool for many businesses; particularly smaller businesses. If this resource was to be merged into a larger harder to navigate site then where will they go!!
Lets hope the politicians see the sense in “if its not broken then why do we need to fix it” and this idea will be discarded.
John Hamilton
How true, the satisfaction stats show what users think of it. Why change?
Les Nettleton
In view of the recent ending of the telephone support service and the diversion of all those queries to the internet (in the process disenfranchising all those without easy access to the internet, such as workers if a query arises at work) any removal of the HSE site would seem to be totally contrary to any logic.
I am concerned that the current lack of easy access to advice and an almost impossible ability to talk to an inspector or other competent person ‘in person’ has already reduced theability to communicate properly to (as research shows) less than 10% of the meaning. Needing to delve into the depths of a massive website will demand skills that many of the working age people of the Uk have never been taught. a large amount of time and access to fast internet connection.
In raural areas such as the one I live in (Mid Wales) even the internet connection is a problem and without fast access why would anyone, especially from the ‘working classes’ spend large sums on a computer that is of little use?
The growth of mobile phone availability (another problem in rural areas) at least made telephone advice a reality – the move to web advice was not appreciated by those working in ‘non office based’ jobs (i.e. where they were not enjoying ‘low risk’ conditions), making it more difficult again to get competent advice would be disastrous.