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Workplace complaints - health and safety

Information on who enforces the health and safety legislation in your workplace and how to report a health and safety concern.

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Who enforces health and safety legislation at my workplace?

Workplace health and safety legislation in Great Britain is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or one of the over 380 local authorities depending on the main activity carried out at any particular premises. For the East Riding of Yorkshire Council this function is undertaken by the Health and Safety Team.

In general, our service is the main enforcing authority for retail, wholesale distribution and warehousing, hotel and catering premises, offices, and the consumer/leisure industries in the East Riding of Yorkshire area. Whereas the HSE are the enforcing authority for sectors such as agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.

For workplace health and safety law, our service can investigate complaints into businesses for which we are enforcing authority. The HSE can investigate complaints against businesses that they are enforced authority for.

To check if a business is enforced by the Local Authority or the HSE please visit the webpage which includes a full list of work activities:

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) - Enforcement allocation (external website)

What legislation covers workplace health and safety?

All workers have a right to work in places where risks to their health and safety are reasonably controlled. Health and safety is about preventing injury, near miss and/or ill health cause through work. Employers are responsible for health and safety, but you must help.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation covers workplace health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which:

  • employers have towards employees and members of the public
  • employees have to themselves and to each other
  • certain self-employed have towards themselves and others.

For more information on workplace health and safety legislation please visit the HSE website on the link:

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) - Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (external website)

When should I report a health and safety issue in my workplace?

If you think your work environment is damaging your health or putting your safety, or the safety of the public or colleagues at risk you should raise your concerns with your employer or the person in charge.

If no improvement is made, then you can report your concern to the council's Health and Safety team, and we may investigate..

We can investigate complaints such as:

  • unsafe practices in the workplace
  • unsafe premises in the workplace
  • concerns about welfare in the workplace
  • unreported accidents in the workplace.

Our primary role is to investigate that there is no unreasonable risk of personal injury or ill health, for employees, members of the public and any other individuals at workplaces and take the appropriate action to support organisations to rectify health and safety issues.

We do not normally investigate accidents or incidents that do not meet the criteria to be reported under RIDDOR. However, we may still investigate to check that there are no current risk of personal injury or breaches of the workplace health and safety law outstanding. Visit this page for more information on accident investigation and RIDDOR.

How can I report a concern about health and safety in a workplace?

Firstly, please check that the concerns that you are reporting relates to a workplace that is enforced by the council. Remember that we are not responsible for investigation of complaints into agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. This would fall under the HSE.

Please also check that the work activity is taking place in the East Riding of Yorkshire Local Authority area. In most cases we cannot investigate complaints for work activity taking place outside of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

If the workplace is enforced by the council's Health and Safety team please make a report using our online form:

Report a health and safety concern

If you are not sure if the work activity is enforced by the council's Health and Safety team please contact us with an enquiry at .

Health and Safety concerns enforced by the HSE should be reported via the link below:

HSE - Tell us about a health and safety issue (external website)

What happens after I make a complaint?

We may contact you to discuss your complaint and obtain further information. In some cases, the information provided will be sufficient to investigate the matter and we will not contact you until the end of the investigation.

The Councils Health and Safety Team may investigate your complaint, and this could involve a visit by our officers to the workplace.

Although we will endeavour to investigate complaints in a timely manner. Some investigations are complex and involve obtaining and reviewing technical evidence which can take time. The investigating officer will keep you updated if an investigation does take time to conclude.

At the end of the investigation, the investigating officer will contact you to update you on the outcome of the investigation. In most cases due to data protection, we are unable to share details of our investigation and the specific action taken.

The HSE have published guidance to Health and Safety Officers to support officers in deciding if they should take enforcement action and what sort of enforcement action to take. The guidance is not strict set of rules, but Officers will consider this when making decisions.

We publish information on some formal enforcement action such as notices served and prosecutions on our online register.

Please note: the register does not include notices that were solely issued for the protection of persons at work and there is no risk to the public.

All enforcement decision and action will be taken in accordance with the council Public Protection Enforcement Policy and the Regulators Code. For more information, please visit the Public Protection Enforcement Policy.

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