To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what targets the Health and Safety Executive set for reducing (a) the incidence of injury, (b) the incidence of ill health, (c) the incidence of working days lost and (d) the numbers of recorded major hazard precursor incidences in each year since 1997, broken down by region; and whether these targets were met in each year. (186680)

The Health and Safety Commission set three targets to reduce the incidence rates of work-related fatal and major injury, ill health and working days lost as part of its ‘Revitalising Health and Safety’ strategy launched in 2000. This was the first time HSC/E had set national targets of this sort. These were not annual targets, but cover a 10-year period to 2009-10, using 1999 to 2000 as the baseline year, and sought reductions of:

work-related fatal and major injury—10 per cent. reduction from the baseline;

work-related ill health—20 per cent. reduction from the baseline; and

work-related days lost—30 per cent. reduction from the baseline.

HSE's current PSA targets (2005-06 to 2007-08, using 2004-05 as a baseline) are designed to contribute to these longer term targets—aiming for a 3 per cent. reduction in work-related fatal and major injuries, 6 per cent. reduction in work-related ill health and 9 per cent. reduction in work-related days lost over the life of the PSA. The following table shows the official published statistics for each year from 1999 to 2000 to 2006-07 against the PSA target for comparison purposes.

HSE has only had formal targets relating to major hazard for the current PSA period (2005-06 to 2007-08). The table shows the major hazards targets for 2007-08 and progress towards them.

All HSE's targets cover Great Britain as a whole; although regional statistics are published, the targets, and progress towards them, are not broken down regionally or locally.