The Director’s Duties

Company directors have the greatest power to determine whether their company is complying with health and safety law - but they have absolutely no legal obligation to do so and the health and safety of Britain's workers is being put at risk as a result.

However, this state of 'legalised ignorance' could soon be swept away thanks to a new campaign from the T&G and the construction union UCATT.

If victorious, bosses will no longer be able to insulate themselves from and remain, quite legitimately, ignorant about the safety practices of their company. Instead, they will be legally required to take the workplace health record of their company as seriously as its financial one.

The unions stepped up the campaign for better workplace safety following a rise in workplace deaths in 2004 which were up 4 percent on the previous year's figures. Working with Stephen Hepburn, MP for Jarrow, the campaign is promoting a private member's bill to introduce positive health and safety obligations on company directors.

This would also ensure that directors were held to account for negligent health and safety practices in their workplaces that led to injuries or fatalities.

Powers and duties of director; compensation of personnel

A. The director shall:

1. Be the executive officer of the department of health services and the state registrar of vital statistics but shall not receive compensation for services as registrar.

2. Perform all duties necessary to carry out the functions and responsibilities of the department.

3. Prescribe the organization of the department. The director shall appoint or remove personnel as necessary for the efficient work of the department and shall prescribe the duties of all personnel. The director may abolish any office or position in the department that the director believes is unnecessary.

4. Administer and enforce the laws relating to health and sanitation and the rules of the department.

5. Provide for the examination of any premises if the director has reasonable cause to believe that on the premises there exists a violation of any health law or rule of the state.

6. Exercise general supervision over all matters relating to sanitation and health throughout the state. When in the opinion of the director it is necessary or advisable, a sanitary survey of the whole or of any part of the state shall be made. The director may enter, examine and survey any source and means of water supply, sewage disposal plant, sewerage system, prison, public or private place of detention, asylum, hospital, school, public building, private institution, factory, workshop, tenement, public washroom, public rest room, public toilet and toilet facility, public eating room and restaurant, dairy, milk plant or food manufacturing or processing plant, and any premises in which the director has reason to believe there exists a violation of any health law or rule of the state that the director has the duty to administer.

7. Prepare sanitary and public health rules.

8. Perform other duties prescribed by law.

B. If the director has reasonable cause to believe that there exists a violation of any health law or rule of the state, the director may inspect any person or property in transportation through the state, and any car, boat, train, trailer, airplane or other vehicle in which that person or property is transported, and may enforce detention or disinfection as reasonably necessary for the public health if there exists a violation of any health law or rule.

C. The director may deputize, in writing, any qualified officer or employee in the department to do or perform on the director's behalf any act the director is by law empowered to do or charged with the responsibility of doing.

D. The director may delegate to a local health department, county environmental department or public health services district any functions, powers or duties that the director believes can be competently, efficiently and properly performed by the local health department, county environmental department or public health services district if:

1. The director or superintendent of the local health agency, environmental agency or public health services district is willing to accept the delegation and agrees to perform or exercise the functions, powers and duties conferred in accordance with the standards of performance established by the director.

2. Monies appropriated or otherwise made available to the department for distribution to or division among counties or public health services districts for local health work may be allocated or reallocated in a manner designed to assure the accomplishment