The Robens Report on workplace health and safety was published in July 1972. It led to the HSW Act 1974, which created the HSE in 1975, and remains the bedrock of the UK's approach to health and safety today. Robens shifted the regulation of health and safety from an approach based on prescription and detail towards one based on goal setting, with the core HSW Act and more detailed Regulations issued it underpinned by enhanced enforcement powers and a consultative and tripartite approach. For most of the subsequent 50 years, it has been almost amantra within the health and safety world to insist that Robens remains fit for purpose and offers the flexibility to react to ever-changing circumstances. Two of the most eminent academics active in the field of health and safety now claim, however, that the UK has instead endured "50 years of regulatory failure".
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