Achieving the Revitalising Health and Safety targets: Statistical progress report

The Revitalising Health and Safety strategy statement, launched in June 2000, set three national targets for improving health and safety performance by 2010. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) set out its technical approach to measuring progress against the Revitalising targets in a Statistical Note published in June 2001. Among other things, this said that a report on progress would be prepared each autumn, comparing the latest data with those for the base year (1999 or financial year 1999/2000). This document is the ninth such annual report.

It presents HSE’s judgements on progress to 2008/09, against pro rata target reductions corresponding to nine-tenths of the full ten-year targets: 9% for fatal and major injuries, 18% for ill health incidence and 27% for working days lost. In each case HSE assess whether progress is ‘on track’ to meet the ten-year targets.

HSE statisticians also make statements about progress against the DSO indicators for ill-health and injury which are seeking to achieve “sustained improvement” in the incidence rate of fatal and major injury and ill health since 2008 against a 1999/2000 base year.
The assessments of progress represent HSE statisticians’ best judgements based on the information available at October 2009. The judgements make use of data from a number of different sources (which was also a commitment from the Statistical Note).

Further details of how this statistical judgement is derived are presented in Annex B.