§ Mr. DismoreTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many health and safety inspectors there are, broken down by(a) ethnicity and (b) languages other than English spoken by inspectors; what methods of communications are available to inspectors when dealing with workers who are not fluent in English; and if he will make a statement. [175423]
§ Jane KennedyThe following tables show the number of full time equivalent inspectors broken down by their ethnicity (Table 1) and the languages other than English spoken (Table 2) as at 21 May 2004.
1800W
Table 1: Break down of inspectors by ethnicity Ethnic origin Number African 4.65 Any Chinese background not specified 2 Any other ethnic background not specified 8 Any other mixed ethnic background 1 Asian and White 3 Black Caribbean and White 0.55 Caribbean 7 East African Asian 1
Table 1: Break down of inspectors by ethnicity Ethnic origin Number Egyptian 1 Indian 19.61 Other Asian background not specified 4 Pakistani 8 Tehran/Iran 1 Other1 1,507.8 Total 1,568.61 1The information on individual ethnic origins has been provided from the HSE's personnel system and is based on the recently
completed survey. However, it should be noted that if the
individual declined to respond on the form then the system would
automatically default to other.
Table 2: Break down of the languages spoken by inspectors Language1 Number Arabic 2.0 Bengali 2.0 Cantonese 2.0 Chinese 2.0 Chinese Mandarin 1.0 Czech 1.0 Danish 3.0 Dutch 2.8 Farsi 1.0 Flemish 1.0 French 329.0 Gaelic 3.0 German 89.0 Greek 2.5 Gujarati 2.6 Hindi 7.0 Igbo 0.7 Italian 18.9 Japanese 1.0 Nepali 1.0 Norwegian 3.0 Polish 1.0 Portuguese 2.8 Punjabi 15.0 Pushtu 1.0 Russia 6.0 Sign 1.0 Spanish 40.2 Swahili 1.0 Swedish 2.0 Tamil 2.0 Urdu 8.0 Welsh 20.7 Yoruba 1.0 Total2 577.3 1 Languages other than English. 2Some inspectors speak more than one language other than English. HSE provides two main means of communication for inspectors who are not fluent in the language spoken by workers with whom they are dealing. These are interpreters for verbal communications and translators for provision of written communications.
There is a legal duty on all employers to provide comprehensible and relevant information on the risks to the health and safety of their employees and the measures they have in place to protect them against those risks. This means that those employing workers who are not fluent in English may need to make special arrangements in order to comply with this duty. To help them comply, HSE and its inspectors seeks to provide support to such employers through a range of services including the provision of leaflets containing key health and safety messages translated into a variety of languages and access to a translation service.