We are presently contacting businesses who have not had any dealings with us for many years. Now that we have fewer resources, often the first time we get to speak to a business is following an accident or to investigate a complaint. Unfortunately by then offences may have been committed, and we may find ourselves obliged to consider legal action over matters that could have been easily avoided if the business had more information to hand over what standards are required.

If you would like to complete the questionnaire you would be welcome to do so. It may help you to get a clearer idea of the issues an inspector would look at if they had to visit your business. You don't have to fill out your business details at the end of the questionnaire if you don't want. In that case the form would not be saved.

We use the information to help us understand what information might be useful to your business in the future and we may be able to help you reduce their health and safety risks, improve management and reduce costs. Completing the questionnaire helps a business to see, before it’s too late, areas where they are complying fully with the law and areas where they need to take steps now to improve health and safety in the workplace.

The questionnaire is being used for all business sectors and some sections will not be relevant to particular businesses, so can be safely deleted if the business is sure that they do not apply.

Our role is to help our businesses with the law, and we want the businesses in our district to thrive and succeed. We have worked with the other Local Authorities in Devon and produced a pack to help small businesses manage their health and safety risks, called Safer Workplace Better Business.