It is designed to engage central government, local government and public services in addressing health and safety challenges and has the potential to make a considerable contribution to improving service delivery and creating a more productive, healthier workforce.

The following pages aim to provide you with information on:

• What the programme is achieving
• Case studies from public sector organisations that have improved their health and safety management
• Other sources of information on health and safety in the public sector.
  

Introduction/Background

The vision for the GSE programme is

" To reduce the number of working days lost in the civil service and wider public sector, especially those caused by work related accidents and ill-health, by 30%, by 2010"

The recently published CBI report, "Room for Improvement: Absence and labour turnover 2004", shows that the public sector had the highest absence rate of all sectors, nearly 64 million days lost each year.

Better management of health and safety will improve the efficiency and productivity of the public sector and help reduce the sickness absence rate to the same level as the best in the UK.

• Government should set an example as an employer by improving its own health and safety management systems; and
• Government should influence other organisations through its role as a funder, procurer of goods and services and standard setter.