A new briefing into the decline of regulation, entitled ‘Better Regulation: Better for Whom?’, found that between 2004 and 2013 there were 34% fewer food standards inspections and 28% fewer prosecutions, while the average business can now expect a local authority health and safety inspection only once in every 20 years.
The report, published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and written by Professor Steve Tombs, argues that this situation is the result of the privatisation of regulatory and enforcement activities, and a shift to business self-regulation.
Professor Tombs said: ‘This is not about rules, regulations and red tape. It is about lives lost and shortened and the health of communities, workers and consumers made poorer. This is avoidable business-generated, state facilitated social murder. And quite remarkably, it proceeds daily, met largely by political silence.’
Read the report and read more at localgov.co.uk
