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Health and safety at work

Senior Labour Inspectors Committee

The Senior Labour Inspectors’ Committee (SLIC) was first established in 1982 to assist the European Commission in monitoring the enforcement of EU legislation at the local level.

A Commission Decision (95/319/EC) gave the Committee formal status in 1995 with a mandate to give its opinion to the Commission, either at the Commission’s request or on its own initiative, on all problems relating to the enforcement by the Member States of Community law on health and safety at work.

The Committee is regulated by:

• Commission Decision of 12 July 1995 setting up a Committee of Senior Labour Inspectors (95/319/EC)
• Commission Decision (2008/823/EC) of 22 October 2008 amending COMM/95/319
• Commission Decision of 4 May 2010 on the appointment of members of the Committee of Senior Labour Inspectors for the period from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012 (2010/C 116/04)
• Rules of Procedure of the SLIC

The SLIC’s overriding objective is to achieve common principles of labour inspection in the field of occupational health and safety, for example, in the areas of inspection services (availability of effective sanctions) and prevention services (availability of a wide range of technical expertise).

Its role is to ‘monitor, on the basis of close cooperation between its members and the Commission, the effective and equivalent enforcement of secondary Community law on health and safety at work, and to analyse the practical questions involved in monitoring the enforcement of legislation in this field.’

It sets out to develop an ongoing exchange of information among the national bodies and, in addition to its regular meetings, the Committee organises seminars and an exchange system for safety inspectors.

The principal activities of SLIC are to:

• Define common principles of labour inspection in the field of health and safety at work and developing methods of assessing the national systems of inspection in relation to those principles
• Promote improved knowledge and mutual understanding of the different national systems and practices of labour inspection, the methods and legal frameworks for action
• Develop exchanges of information between national labour inspection services about their experiences in monitoring the enforcement of secondary Community law on health and safety at work
• Promote a labour inspector exchange programme between national administrations and the setting up of inspector training programmes
• Develop a reliable and efficient system of rapid information exchange between labour inspectorates about health and safety issues
• Establish active cooperation with labour inspectorates in third countries to promote better understanding and to assist in resolving any cross-border problems
• Study the possible impact of other Community policies on labour inspection activities relating to health and safety at work and working conditions.

The Committee is composed of the Commission and two representatives (one representative as from 1 January 2010) of the labour inspection services of each EU Member State. It assembles for a meeting every six months in the EU Member State holding the EU Presidency.

Activities and meetings

Check the library entries for SLIC.