A new survey has found that the average time small businesses spend on understanding, implementing, putting into action and monitoring changes in health and safety regulations is 14 hours per month.
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) conducted a survey across 150 small to medium-sized firms and found that 47 per cent spend more than seven hours a month attempting to comply with health and safety regulations, while 19 per cent spend up to a week.
Over half of respondents (57 per cent) said that the administration of health and safety regulations was very time-consuming while 56 per cent said it took too much time simply to understand them.
The majority (60 per cent) said they did not believe the time consecrated to health and safety was proportionate to the benefits derived for their businesses, prompting calls for the government to simplify legislation.
FPB chief executive Nick Goulding said: "The amount of time being spent on these areas replaces the time spent on supervision, which could have a greater impact on safety.
"Health and safety regulations are seen by many of our members as neither beneficial nor necessary when compared with the amount of time they prevent them from running their businesses."
