Summary
April was a very busy month here at Spongl HQ. We backed-up our Airtable Bases in Supabase and are busy migrating full-text articles. We fixed a bug meaning we can target and update our records for laws that have been changed by new laws. We processed all the new laws that get released in April. We harvested all the regulatory enforcement statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive and made a new Airtable resource. And finally we've launched our PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION PLAN.
Legal Register
New Laws
April is traditionally a busy month for the publication of new laws. Many new laws are scheduled to come into force in April to help businesses better plan.
We review each new law that's published in any month to decide whether or not to include it in our databases. This month 86 new laws were included.
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
We review each new law that's published in any month to decide whether or not to include it in our databases. This month 86 new laws were included.
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
Updated Laws
All those new laws affected lots of other laws - 79 in fact.
Here is an extract of just one of those records. The Flexible Working Regulations 2014 were amended by the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
Here is an extract of just one of those records. The Flexible Working Regulations 2014 were amended by the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
Repealed / Revoked Laws
16 EHS laws were either repealed or revoked in April. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) (Revocation) Regulations 2024 did most of the heavy lifting.
The most notable example now on the scrapheap of old laws is possibly the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. Are we keeping up at the back?
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
The most notable example now on the scrapheap of old laws is possibly the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. Are we keeping up at the back?
For the full-list please Buy Me A Coffee
Regulatory Enforcement Stats
We're busy harvesting and mashing together all the enforcement stats published by the likes of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Environment Agency, Office of Rail and Road and others.
So far we've processed the cases taken and notices issued by the HSE. That's a Base with c.30,000 Notices and c.3,000 Cases.
Each Case and Notice is linked back to our legal register which means we can quickly produce lots of summary stats about which laws are 'hot' and which not.
Interesting facts? Cases since 2014 have netted a total of £485M for the Treasury (excluding costs of another £45M). Enough to get at least a couple of those planes off the ground to Rwanda.
Apart from the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 the most popular law against which to bring charges is the Working at Height Regulations 2005 with 366 cases in the period.
42 of the canon of health and safety laws enforced by the HSE has been used to lay charges and the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 2792 wasn't one of them.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 2677 is the most frequently cited set of Regulations in enforcement Notices with 8556 breaches listed.
Manufacturing accounts for about 50% of the c.60,000 breaches identified. And agriculture is the sector seeing equal enforcement of the Diving at Work Regulations 1997 2776 - must be all the rain we're having.
For the full and growing list please Buy Me A Coffee
So far we've processed the cases taken and notices issued by the HSE. That's a Base with c.30,000 Notices and c.3,000 Cases.
Each Case and Notice is linked back to our legal register which means we can quickly produce lots of summary stats about which laws are 'hot' and which not.
Interesting facts? Cases since 2014 have netted a total of £485M for the Treasury (excluding costs of another £45M). Enough to get at least a couple of those planes off the ground to Rwanda.
Apart from the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 the most popular law against which to bring charges is the Working at Height Regulations 2005 with 366 cases in the period.
42 of the canon of health and safety laws enforced by the HSE has been used to lay charges and the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 2792 wasn't one of them.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 2677 is the most frequently cited set of Regulations in enforcement Notices with 8556 breaches listed.
Manufacturing accounts for about 50% of the c.60,000 breaches identified. And agriculture is the sector seeing equal enforcement of the Diving at Work Regulations 1997 2776 - must be all the rain we're having.
For the full and growing list please Buy Me A Coffee
Personal Subscription Plan
We've launched our Personal Subscription Plan service this month. Which is a fancy way of saying that all the stuff we were making available for free is now available for the dirt cheap price of a cup of coffee!
The personal subscription plan is what it says on the tin. The plan is for individuals and not businesses. The resources are Read Only and the adapted information comes with a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
You can find the details here: https://airtable.com/appsTX6b1yse1sy7C/shr4X7LxqyndJwLyw
There are 3 PSPs ranging from £5 to £10 in price (okay so maybe this should be called 'buy me a pint', but that's not what the web service is called and in any case coffee at some service stations hits the £5 a cup price point now).
You don't have to subscribe. 'Buying me a coffee' gives access to the resources for a month. After which time the passwords change and you'll have to buy me another coffee.
I don't know how much you currently pay for this information but I'm guessing its more than the cost of a coffee. But you can tell me in the comments if we would be better to focus on actually selling coffee.
The personal subscription plan is what it says on the tin. The plan is for individuals and not businesses. The resources are Read Only and the adapted information comes with a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
You can find the details here: https://airtable.com/appsTX6b1yse1sy7C/shr4X7LxqyndJwLyw
There are 3 PSPs ranging from £5 to £10 in price (okay so maybe this should be called 'buy me a pint', but that's not what the web service is called and in any case coffee at some service stations hits the £5 a cup price point now).
You don't have to subscribe. 'Buying me a coffee' gives access to the resources for a month. After which time the passwords change and you'll have to buy me another coffee.
I don't know how much you currently pay for this information but I'm guessing its more than the cost of a coffee. But you can tell me in the comments if we would be better to focus on actually selling coffee.
... into May
The big 'todo' for May is to build a database of all the application rules contained in our c.17,000 EHS laws. What does this mean? Well, its all those rules that tell you if a law applies to you or not. Once we have all the rules extracted and in one place we'll be able to find the patterns and condense the rules down into a smaller set of rules that are easier to work with. And from that its a short step to providing filters to include / exclude laws based on those rules.
And if that wasn't enough fun for one month we'll continue to build the enforcement register.
If you like our work or this post then please give us a like or share - we have no marketing budget.
spongl
Working towards all supporter income helping urban community micro projects tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.
DO GOOD, BE HAPPY
And if that wasn't enough fun for one month we'll continue to build the enforcement register.
If you like our work or this post then please give us a like or share - we have no marketing budget.
spongl
Working towards all supporter income helping urban community micro projects tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.
DO GOOD, BE HAPPY