ALTHOUGH a staggering 95 per cent of business leaders in Yorkshire claim that their employees comply with health and safety regulations, 31 per cent of them are personally not aware of the health and safety regulations affecting their company.

Nearly a sixth (16 per cent) of the region's bosses who profess to know nothing are ignoring responsibilities in the full knowledge that they are putting lives at risk because of a lack of health and safety compliance

This alarming gap between employee and management awareness in the county was revealed today in a survey commissioned by weartical.com, an online provider of workwear and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for UK and global industries.

The survey findings also suggest that Yorkshire's business leaders identify there is a need for health and safety improvements but most - 72 per cent - are reluctant to invest any more money to make those improvements.

The Weartical.com Health and Safety Report also claims that businesses in the region are buckling under the strain of new EU health and safety regulations - with more than a quarter (26 per cent) saying that EU health and safety regulations are crippling their business.

Nearly a third (28 per cent) of business leaders in the region felt EU health and safety regulations are a burden to their business, and nearly a quarter (23 per cent) felt that the UK is falling behind the rest of Europe on health and safety compliance in the workplace.

Olav Roeyset, chief executive of weartical.com, said: "The Yorkshire and Humberside region is split into the blue chip companies that invest to ensure that they comply to health and safety regulations, and the smaller operators that tend to be more lax and ignorant of their employees' health rights within the workplace.

"The big corporations in Yorkshire and Humberside and the general EU businesses examine the overall safety and invest for long term savings, while the smaller end of the region's businesses often provide a more short term knee-jerk reaction - which is often the least time-consuming and cost-cutting route they can find, but not necessarily the most cost efficient and safest."