New small business award from IOSH and the HSE

If you’ve improved health and safety in a small business, you should enter the ‘Innovation in safety – small business award’ and get recognition for your idea.

IOSH and the HSE have come together to create this competition to find new ideas to improve health and safety in small businesses. The entrant with the best new idea will win £1,000 and a free two–day pass to the IOSH 2011 Conference and Exhibition, the largest health and safety conference in the UK.

This competition is an excellent platform to showcase what you’ve done and get industry wide recognition. If you win, your idea will be promoted on the IOSH and HSE websites in SHP and Connect , and on the IOSH channel on YouTube. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 1 March 2011 and the award will be presented at a formal presentation on 15 March 2011 at IOSH 2011 at ExCeL in London.

There are around 4.8 million small businesses in the UK, with around 13.7 million people working for them. Just because a business is small doesn’t mean it’s low risk – for example, 94 per cent of agricultural jobs are in businesses with fewer than 50 workers, yet this sector has one of the highest rates of deaths and serious injury in the country. To cut accidents and ill health in small businesses, we need to find new ways to keep people healthy and safe – without getting in the way of the job.

The award was set up by Judith Donovan CBE, board director of the HSE, who has invested her cash prize for winning the IOSH/Sypol Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 to fund this competition. She won the award for her efforts to make small businesses more aware of the need for health and safety and the importance of taking care of their employees. Hear Judith talk about the competition on the IOSH channel .

This competition is open to IOSH Chartered Members in the UK. You may be a consultant or trainer working with small businesses, or an in–house professional dealing with small firms as part of your supply chain. Your idea has to be original, and must already have been put into practice in a small business with proven results.

To enter the competition, visit the IOSH website . Your entry must be sent to competition@iosh.co.uk by Wednesday 1 December.