Catalogue description Inter-Departmental Working Party on the Gowers Committee Report

In January 1946 a committee was appointed to be chaired by Sir Ernest Gowers, to enquire firstly into the need to extend, strengthen or modify the statutory provisions relating to health, welfare and safety in non-industrial places of employment (i.e. those not covered by the Factories or the Mines and Quarries Acts), and secondly into the hours of employment of juveniles.

The Gowers Committee, which reported in March 1949 (Cmd 7664), dealt mainly in its first consideration with shops, offices, catering establishments, theatres and agricultural land. It concluded that the existing statutory provisions in these areas of employment, which were chiefly confined to public health legislation, were not satisfactory. A number of additional requirements were therefore proposed, mainly adapted from the Factories Acts. Recommendations were principally for sanitary accommodation, washing facilities, heating, lighting and ventilation, fire escape systems, first aid and safeguards for dangerous machinery and chemicals.

An Inter-departmental Working Party was subsequently set up to examine the recommendations in part 1 of the report concerning health, welfare and safety in non-industrial places of employment. The working party was composed of representatives from the Home Office, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, the Scottish Home Department and the Ministry of Works. The recommendations were agreed in principle, but details were altered, and the whole was put in the form of a Comprehensive Legislative Code.