"This is the 14th TUC survey of health and safety representatives, which we carry out every two years. We use this report to understand the changing experience of safety representatives at work and to help provide more support. We also use the survey to inform our campaigning priorities. We hope that unions and reps can use the report to help with their ongoing work.

The responses provide much a lot of information and background on the profile of safety representatives, the work they do to improve safety and the help they get from employers and enforcement agencies. The survey once again presents an urgent challenge to the trade union movement in how we address the aging profile of our safety reps, as within the next ten years we risk losing a large proportion from the workforce, with younger reps recruited at a much slower pace.

There is some change in this year's survey compared with the last one. The 2020/21 survey was conducted during the height of the Covid-19 crisis, and several sections of that one dealt specifically with the pandemic. This year's survey questionnaire made a partial return to the pre-pandemic set of questions. However, since the effects of the virus have not gone away, we still asked safety representatives about how it was being managed in their workplace.

This report is based on an open online survey that was distributed widely and was analysed by the Labour Research Department on behalf of the TUC. The survey ran from 6 December 2022 to 14 February 2023 and attracted a record 3,046 respondents. This is almost a third higher than the number who participated in the 2020/21 survey (2,138), and three times the number responding in 2018 (1,073). Thank you to all those unions who promoted the survey and encouraged responses – and to all who took part in completing it! This ever-increasing number of participants in these surveys indicates that there is no diminution in the commitment of thousands of union reps around the country to protect and improve the health and safety at work of their members and share their experiences."

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