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» Back to listing Health and safety discourages work-experience placements, says PM

14th January 2013

Onerous health and safety regulations are partly responsible for discouraging businesses from offering work-experience placements to young people, David Cameron has told an audience of small-business leaders.

The prime minister gave the assessment recently at a PM Direct event at the University of Central Lancashire, in Preston. The event was staged to promote the Government’s Start-Up Loans scheme, aimed at providing entrepreneurs with the finance and support to launch their own business. 

During a Q&A session on the programme, Mr Cameron lamented that fewer companies were offering work-experience positions – a trend he described as “very, very bad news”.

He said: “We do have a potential problem here because a lot of kids aren’t getting the sort of work experience that you used to get because of all the concerns about health and safety, and it’s all too difficult, and all the rest of it. So, if we’re not careful, there’s a danger that schools and businesses will separate even more than they are today.”

He continued: “We need to encourage businesses to offer that work experience; we need to simplify health and safety rules; we need to say to schools: ‘every school should have a plan for how you are going to teach children about enterprise and business’.”

IOSH, which has worked with Young Enterprise to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in business and to enjoy healthy careers, disagreed with the assertion that health and safety rules are too burdensome in relation to work experience.

Focusing on how a placement can improve young people’s awareness of dangers in the workplace, the Institution’s head of policy and public affairs, Richard Jones, said: “Work experience helps foster people’s risk awareness and education, preparing our UK workforce of the future for sustainable and productive careers. 



“Sensible risk management is also a part of successful business – good health and safety saves lives, supports business and sustains the economy. And, by taking a proportionate approach to work-experience health and safety, companies have nothing to fear, as the requirements are not onerous.” 


But he also warned that young and inexperienced workers are more vulnerable to accidents and need proper training and supervision.

“In the last decade, five under-19s were killed on average each year, with over 5000 seriously injured,” Jones highlighted. “It’s important that our political leaders encourage good health and safety to foster risk intelligence in our workforces of the future.”
 


The Federation of Small Businesses said there are many factors that can deter small firms from taking on a young person, as work experience or even in employment – citing poor engagement between firms and schools to help place students on work experience, a lack of confidence that school and college-leavers have the appropriate skills for the workplace, and highlighting the cost of complying with employment legislation in general as a barrier.

 
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