L’ordinamento britannico

I principali riferimenti normativi in tema di valutazione dei rischi nell’ordinamento in esame sono identificabili nell’Health and Sa-fety at Work Act del 1974, nel Management of Health and Safe-ty at Work Regulations del 1999 (c.d. Management Regulations) che esplicita ulteriormente i doveri datoriali sanciti dall’Health and Safety at Work Act. Inoltre un ruolo significativo nel quadro delle fonti è attribuito sia ad ulteriori Regulations che ai c.d. Codes of Practice che offrono esempi pratici di good practices (sul punto Health and safety regulation… a short guide, Health and Safety Exec-utive, 2003, pp. 1-7, «The Health and Safety at Work Act, and general duties in the Management Regulations, are goal setting (see ‘What form do they take?’) and leave employers freedom to decide how to control risks which they identify. Guidance and Approved Codes of Practice give advice. But some risks are so great, or the proper control measures so costly, that it would not be appropriate to leave employers discretion in deciding what to do about them. Regulations identify these risks and set out spe-cific action that must be taken. Often these requirements are ab-solute to do something without qualification by whether it is reasonably practicable»).

La direttiva-quadro 89/391 ha influenzato il sistema giuridico del Regno Unito in tema di valutazione dei rischi essendo questo uno dei princìpi cardine della normativa comunitaria. S. LEKA ET AL., The changing landscape of OSH regulation in the UK, IOSH, 2016, pp. 19-20, precisano come «the EU influence on UK OSH legislation continued with a significant addition being the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and

Re-striction of Chemicals) Regulations, which came into force in the UK in June 2007. This created a new approach to the con-trol of chemicals by shifting the responsibility for substance risk assessment from the regulator to manufacturers and importers»

(p. 22).

La valutazione del rischio nell’ordinamento in esame è orientata alla realizzazione di una funzione pratica e l’obiettivo della legi-slazione e delle indicazioni operative fornite dalle istituzioni go-vernative competenti, rimarca appunto questo aspetto per sotto-lineare la natura sostanziale e non di mero adempimento di que-sta procedura. Il procedimento deve partire innanzitutto da una identificazione del rischio e dei soggetti che possono esserne i potenziali destinatari, valutando anche la loro condizione sogget-tiva. Inoltre, per quanto riguarda gli adempimenti formali, per le aziende con meno di 5 dipendenti non vige un obbligo di forma-lizzazione della valutazione. In generale, benché come si è già detto l’obiettivo della procedura non è una sterile reportistica burocratica, si consiglia comunque la redazione di un documen-to che attesti la valutazione e che ne ripercorra le tappe e sinte-tizzi i contenuti in modo tale da poter monitorare l’evoluzione dei rischi e l’idoneità delle misure attuate per la loro limitazione.

In particolare le istituzioni governative competenti precisano che

«A risk assessment must be suitable and sufficient, ie it should show that: a proper check was made; you asked who might be affected; you dealt with all the obvious significant hazards, tak-ing into account the number of people who could be involved;

the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low;

you involved your employees or their representatives in the pro-cess» (diffusamente sulla valutazione del rischio, Risk assessment A brief guide to controlling risks in the workplace, Health and Safety Executive, 2014, pp. 1-5).

Il dovere datoriale di procedere all’identificazione a valutazione del rischio è funzionale ad evitare il rischio stesso o a limitarlo e a strutturare e mettere in atto misure preventive idonee a

garan-tire la sicurezza e la salute dei lavoratori; misure prevenzionisti-che la cui natura è composita, comprendendo sia i dispositivi di prevenzione che misure organizzative più complesse che pren-dano in considerazione non solo la dimensione individuale della tutela, ma anche quella collettiva (così si evince dalla ricostruzio-ne di S. JONES, E. SLADE, Tolley’s Employment Handbook, Tolley, 2020, 34th edition, § 29.17: «Every employer (and self-employed person) must make a risk assessment relating to his premises, so as to identify the measures he needs to take to comply with the health and safety and fire precautions requirements applicable to him; the assessment must be reviewed when necessary and (where there are more than five employees) recorded. […] When an employer implements any preventive and protective measures, it is to be done on the basis of the following princi-ples: (a) avoiding risks; (b) evaluating the risks which cannot be avoided; (c) combating the risks at source; (d) adapting the work to the individual, especially as regards the design of workplaces, the choice of work equipment and the choice of working and production methods, with a view in particular to alleviating mo-notonous work and work at a predetermined work rate and to reducing their effect on health; (e) adapting to technical pro-gress; (f) replacing the dangerous with the non-dangerous or the less dangerous; (g) developing a coherent overall prevention pol-icy which covers technology, organisation of work, working conditions, social relationships and the influence of factors relat-ing to the workrelat-ing environment; (h) givrelat-ing collective protective measures priority over individual protective measures; and (i) giving appropriate instructions to employees»).

È previsto anche un obbligo di valutazione del rischio collegato allo stress da lavoro e di quello derivante da violenza o bullismo sul luogo di lavoro («Where stress risks are a feature of a particu-lar job, a risk assessment should be made under the Manage-ment of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 […] in the same way as for the risk of physical injury. It is important that complaints of working conditions or workloads causing stress

are dealt with quickly and thoroughly and efforts made to reduce the risk of future health problems. […] When making the risk assessment required under the Management of Health and Safe-ty at Work Regulations 1992, as amended in 1999, (see 29.17 above) the possibility of violence to employees must be evaluat-ed». (S. JONES, E. SLADE, Tolley’s Employment Handbook, cit., § 29.28).

Per quanto riguarda il tema della prevedibilità dei rischi dal quale deriva la completezza e l’idoneità della valutazione del rischio al-lo scopo, la giurisprudenza indica delle coordinate significative.

In particolare «The Supreme Court in Kennedy v Cordia Ser-vices LLP [2016] UKSC 6, [2016] All ER (D) 99 (Feb) gave an illuminating unanimous judgment as to risk assessment and avoidance. The claimant was a carer employed by the defendant.

Her work entailed visiting patients at their homes. She was in-jured when, in the midst of a bitter spell of bad weather, she slipped on ice that had accumulated on the path leading up to the door of the patient upon she was about to call. The employ-er was aware of othemploy-er similar incidents having occurred. A com-petent risk assessment would have lead to the issue of shoe at-tachments which could well have avoided the incident. The judgment is also helpful in explaining when and how expert evi-dence should be relied upon by a court» (S. JONES, E. SLADE, Tolley’s Employment Handbook, cit., § 28.3)

1.5. L’ordinamento statunitense