The Health and Safety Commission is set to lift the lid on poor performers in the Midlands, Ron Reid, a partner with law firm Shoosmiths, has claimed.
He says the HSC is now concentrating on large organisations.
"It's part of its commitment to improve safety in the workplace by making examples of businesses which should be at the forefront of their industries but perhaps are not," he warned.
"It has been designed to have a cascade effect and they hope this new focus will help permeate best practice across whole swathes of business.
"The authorities already use a rating system to ensure that high-risk or poorlymanaged work places are inspected more frequently. In particular businesses and other organisations are assessed for their control of potential risks and approach to worker welfare.
"This latest development is set to take the system to the next level and will also include an open rating of the performance of individual organisations. This is a clear extension of its policy which already makes details of all enforcement actions, from improvement notices to prosecutions, publicly available on the HSE website."
Mr Reid said the region's construction industry in particular needed to be on alert.
New priority topics include noise and hand/arm vibration, reduction of diseases such as cancer, contact dermatitis and occupational asthma as well as absence management, rehabilitation and return to work.
These are in addition to its focus of the last three years which has concentrated on workplace transport, stress issues, "slips and trips", musculoskeletal disorders and falls.
