Office of Public Sector Information

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1991 (S.R. 1991 No. 105), which require information relating to health, safety and welfare to be furnished to employees by means of posters or leaflets in the form approved and published for the purposes of the Regulations by the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland.

The 1991 Regulations require the name and address of the enforcing authority to be written in the appropriate place on the poster (regulation 5(1)); and where the leaflet is given, the same information should be specified in a written notice accompanying it (regulation 5(3)). These Regulations amend regulation 5(1) and 5(3) of the 1991 Regulations to enable an employer alternatively to provide information as to how any of his employees may obtain the name and address of the enforcing authority.

The Regulations also amend regulation 3(2)(b) of the 1991 Regulations by increasing the period in which an employer can continue to display the unrevised approved poster and distribute the unrevised approved leaflet, from 9 months to five years.

The Regulations also substitute for the definition of “territorial waters” the definition of “ territorial sea” (regulation 2(2)) and a new Schedule 1 (regulation 2(5) and Schedule) in the 1991 Regulations, to update the provisions relating to the application of those Regulations within the territorial sea.