UK Pesticides Safety Directory joins Health and Safety Executive

The UK Pesticides Safety Directory (PSD) became part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on April 1st. The decision to consolidate a number of regulators, including the PSD, is to help implement the government's Hampton Review of regulatory inspection and enforcement of March 2005, says the Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs, Jonathon Shaw. The Hampton Review recommended that the government consider merging smaller regulatory bodies into larger thematic regulators. Other regulators affected are the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate (PHSI) as well as the Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division (PVS). The PSD move follows a public consultation process that ended on January 14th. Under the new order, the PSD will retain its "distinct identity", says Mr Shaw, while being incorporated into the authorised organisation for the regulation of pesticides and chemicals. The new structure is to enable exploration of potential synergies between regulatory science and policy. In this light, it seeks to identify options for improved customer services and efficiencies.

Mr Shaw cites existing "regulatory scientific synergies" and high level stakeholder preference as motivating the Ministry's move to merge the PSD with the HSE specifically. "Concerns over conflicts of interest if the PSD joined the proposed RSA [Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce], which would inevitably result in some loss of business for the CSL [Central Science Laboratory] and the PSD," Mr Shaw adds. The Minister notes "potential benefits to customers and to government" from creating a new regulatory science agency from the PSD, PVS, PHSI and the Department of Food and Rural Affairs' (DEFRA) Plant Health Division, and combining them with the CSL.