Accidents and Apathy: The Construction of the 'Robens Philosophy' of Occupational Safety and Health Regulation in Britain, 1961-1974

Abstract

The 1972 Robens Report is widely regarded to have provided the underlying rationale for the 'modern' system of occupational health and safety regulation in Britain, embodied in the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act) 1974. The HSW Act advanced a new, more flexible system of regulation, premised on the ideal of self-regulation by industry. This article advances a more nuanced historical understanding of the Report and its ethos - the 'Robens philosophy' - than hitherto developed, situating its assumptions about accidents, regulation and the role of the state in the social, economic and political context of Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. Highlighting the interaction between these trends and long-established regulatory practices, the article argues that the turn to 'self-regulation' heralded by the Robens Report was highly convincing from a political and regulatory perspective at the time it was promulgated.