Health and Safety law exemptions for self-employed workers

From 1st October 2015, certain categories of self-employed workers will no longer be required to comply with health and safety law such as the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The law is in place to protect people from exposure to risks caused by the activities of businesses and self-employed individuals, and will still apply to all cases which are deemed to carry risks.

The HSE estimates that this change will exempt 1.7 million self-employed individuals from legal health and safety requirements, including writers, accountants and online traders.

While removal of some of the ‘red tape’ around health and safety is likely to be a cause for celebration for many, this ruling highlights that the vast majority of businesses, including self-employed workers, cause some form of risk to other individuals – risk which must be managed in order to comply with health and safety law.

VinciWorks have over 20 years’ experience in providing businesses with online health and safety training. If you have a business of any size, we can help you to manage and risks arising from its activities and comply with relevant health and safety legislation.

We offer a portfolio of ready-made eLearning courses to meet the most common business health and safety risks, and have produced fully bespoke eLearning solutions for clients such as Royal Mail with more specific training requirements.

How are you managing your GDPR compliance requirements?

GDPR added a significant compliance burden on DPOs and data processors. Data breaches must be reported to the authorities within 72 hours, each new data processing activity needs to be documented and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) must be carried out for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. Penalties for breaching GDPR can reach into the tens of millions of Euros.

“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”