A new online tool aims to help businesses improve their health and safety performance.
The free health and safety performance indicator, available at www.businesslink.gov.uk/healthsafetyindicator has been developed with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI), to provide users with a benchmark against other businesses across sectors and sizes.
The move follows research that found that businesses consider time to be the key barrier to implementing a full health and safety policy.
Seventy two per cent of the 275 businesses surveyed by businesslink.gov.uk cited time as the key obstacle to improving health and safety processes followed by cost (50%) and a lack of staff awareness (35%).
The survey also found that staff welfare is overwhelmingly the main driver to businesses improving their health and safety procedures, (70%), followed by potential cost savings made through reduced insurance premiums (56%) and increased productivity (48%).
Alan Morley, Policy Adviser at HSE said that his organisation was keen for SME's to realise the business benefits that properly taking health and safety into account can bring.
"We recommend all SME's try it," he added. "It is appropriate, anonymous and free. What have you got to lose?"
