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HSE’s 2025 agenda | 7 highlights from its Annual General Meeting
Written on 8 August 2025
Now four years into its ambitious 10-year strategy, the HSE used this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) to clarify its 2025 agenda, sharpening its focus on today’s most pressing health and safety challenges.
From ramping up efforts to reduce work-related ill health to revisiting RIDDOR and tackling emerging risks like AI, here’s a recap of the key takeaways to help you stay informed and ready to respond to a shifting regulatory landscape.
1. Work-related health will take centre stage
The HSE made it clear: work-related ill health is now its primary focus – and for good reason. Each year, work-related ill health leads to an estimated 2.4 million working days lost in Great Britain, costing the economy billions and causing lasting harm to workers’ wellbeing. In fact, ill health accounts for the majority of workplace absence and is a bigger threat to employees than many acute injuries.
In the year ahead, employers can expect:
- More inspections and investigations focused on occupational health risks – particularly dust (including silica), noise, asbestos, and manual handling.
- Increased scrutiny of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and whether appropriate risk controls are in place.
- Greater pressure to implement and evidence health surveillance, particularly in higher-risk environments.
- A continued focus on stress, burnout and work-related mental health, with new insights expected from the HSE’s ongoing research programme into stress prevention
This renewed focus builds on 2024/25 activity, during which the HSE:
- Completed over 7,000 inspections specifically targeting ill-health risks
- Carried out nearly 3,000 MSD risk assessments
- Undertook more than 2,000 checks on health surveillance compliance
- Inspected over 700 licensed asbestos removal contractors
If your organisation has historically prioritised safety over health, now’s the time to rebalance.
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2. RIDDOR is under review
The HSE has announced a formal review of RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) to make the process simpler, more proportionate, and fit for modern work.
Expected areas of reform include:
- Clearer definitions of what must be reported
- Streamlined processes for submitting reports
- Better alignment with today’s working patterns and technologies
Work-related violence and road traffic incidents are not part of this review – but the HSE confirmed that a separate consultation on violence at work is coming.
3. Fee for Intervention could become 'fairer'
The HSE is re-evaluating its Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme, which enables the regulator to charge businesses for the time spent investigating and resolving material breaches of health and safety law – currently set at £183 per hour.
While no final decisions have been made, the review seeks to make FFI:
- Fairer and more transparent
- Proportionate to the breach
- More consistent across sectors
FFI charges can become costly, especially if linked to improvement or prohibition notices. A review will likely be welcome news to employers and industry groups, many of whom have strongly opposed the current scheme.
4. Enforcement remains strong and strategic
The HSE shared some performance highlights, which showed that in the past year:
- Over 4,400 enforcement notices were issued, including 1,200 prohibition notices for activities posing imminent risks to life
- More than 200 prosecutions were brought, with a 96% conviction rate
- 86% of fatal investigations were completed within 12 months, exceeding the HSE’s target
Looking ahead, the HSE says it will continue to embed and refine its risk-based decision-making model. This helps determine which reportable non-fatal incidents to investigate, allowing enforcement efforts to focus on the highest-risk areas.
5. It's embracing AI– and preparing to regulate it
Artificial intelligence (AI) featured prominently at this year’s AGM, both in terms of how it’s being used by the HSE and how it might be regulated in the future.
Internally, the HSE is already applying AI language models to improve its understanding of risk. Chair of the HSE Board, Sarah Newton, explained that AI is helping the regulator identify mismatches between the real hazards causing workplace incidents and the risks commonly prioritised during site inspections. Initially used in the construction sector, this approach is now being expanded to analyse risk profiles in the major hazards sector.
At the same time, the HSE is laying the foundations for AI regulation. Chief Executive Sarah Albon said the regulator is compiling a database of real-world examples of how AI is being used across the industries it oversees. This will serve as a repository to support risk assessments of AI applications in industrial settings. The HSE is also working with technology developers to help shape safety benchmarks and standards – particularly where AI interacts with machinery and functional safety systems.
6. Building safety regulation is changing hands
The Building Safety Regulator (BSR), a new body established in 2023 to oversee building safety, is gradually moving away from the HSE to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It was confirmed that:
- The transfer will begin soon, with secondary legislation expected before Christmas, but the transition will be gradual.
- The HSE will continue supporting the BSR during the handover and will still regulate employment within construction.
- Inspector shortages and poor-quality building control applications are currently slowing assessment and approval processes.
To improve efficiency, the BSR plans to:
- Deploy class two inspectors for lower-risk work, freeing class three inspectors to focus on higher-risk cases.
- Establish an internal multidisciplinary team to speed up application assessments, especially for new buildings and remediation projects.
- Collaborate with industry to enhance application quality and reduce delays.
7. Recognition that sensible and proportionate regulation is key
Throughout the updates, the HSE stressed the importance of sensible and proportionate regulation as the world of work changes. With new technologies, hybrid and gig working arrangements, and emerging risks like AI, the regulator recognises that:
- Regulations need to be fair and balanced to support both business growth and worker safety.
- Enforcement and interventions should focus on the highest risks without placing unnecessary burdens on employers.
- Flexibility and collaboration with industry are key to adapting regulations in a way that remains practical and effective.
This approach underlines the HSE’s broader goal: to help businesses and workers thrive in a changing landscape while maintaining strong health and safety standards.
Final thoughts
Nick Wilson, Director of Health & Safety Services at WorkNest, says: “The HSE’s 2025 agenda makes one thing clear: while enforcement remains strong, its lens is shifting further towards long-term health, modern risks, and smarter, risk-based regulation.
“With regulatory scrutiny set to continue, employers should remain proactive, reassess their controls – especially in regard to occupational health – and keep an eye on emerging developments to RIDDOR, enforcement, and FFI.”
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