Professor Paul Almond, from the University of Reading’s School of Law and the project’s Principal Investigator, said: “Up until the end of the 1960s, health and safety law consisted of a large number of very prescriptive and complex laws governing different hazards. They were enforced by a multitude of regulators, and applied to an industrial and manual workforce, where rates of death, injury, and illness were stubbornly high. However the law has evolved to apply to a largely office-based, service-sector economy.

“Rates of injury and death have fallen, and health and safety management is an accepted part of business. But public hostility towards ‘elf and safety’ has increased dramatically. So why do we seem to think so badly of laws that, on the face of it, to have been a success story and what can be done to alter public perception?”

The two-year project – The Changing Legitimacy of Health and Safety regulation, 1960-2013 – will see researchers interview key stakeholders from H&S practice, including former regulators, politicians and policymakers, workers and trade union safety representatives, employers and managers.