Non-compliance with Health and Safety Legislation is set to become more expensive from April 2012.
From that date, ‘fee for intervention’ arrangements are due to come into force whereby the HSE will be legally obliged to recover costs from duty holders who are found to be in breach of health and safety laws to the point where formal intervention is required.
Intervention in these circumstances includes such actions as:
- Issue of an Improvement or Prohibition Notice
- Other communication by letter or e-mail
Intervention fees are estimated to come in around £133 per hour, which has been calculated as an average rate for all levels of HSE staff except those who work at the Health and Safety Laboratory. In addition, if non-HSE specialist services are required or work by the Health and safety Laboratory, the actual costs of these services will be passed on directly to the duty holder.
These costs don’t only apply to the initial intervention but continue to accrue for any follow up activities that the HSE considers necessary such as writing letters, drafting reports, additional telephone calls or site visits.
It is easy to see that organisations that fall foul of an HSE inspection could be facing significant costs and if they don’t act quickly to correct any breach that has been found, the costs will continue to mount up. Furthermore, this is a legal requirement on the HSE so that their inspectors will have no room to exercise discretion, whatever mitigating circumstances there might be.
Exceptions to Intervention Fees
At the present time, this legal requirement applies only to inspections undertaken by the HSE. It does not apply to inspections undertaken by local authority officers, although this could change and the government is actively seeking the views of local authorities on this matter.
There are also a number of industry sectors where the fees would not apply, in particular where costs are already recovered under existing legislation, such as top tier COMAH sites, offshore gas and oil installations, licensed nuclear installations and some pipeline activities.
There are a few other exceptions, for example work with high-hazard biological agents, due to the fact that separate legislation is in the pipeline for these sectors that will include cost recovery.
We should emphasise that intervention fees apply where there is a material breach of health and safety legislation that requires intervention on the part of the HSE. If there is an HSE inspection that does not identify any non-compliance or something that is a mere technicality, then no fees are payable under this legislation.
Consultation Exercise
The imposition of Intervention fees across England, Scotland and Wales is already agreed by the government so it is definitely coming. However, the exact systems whereby such fees will be imposed and collected are still a matter for consultation.
The consultation period runs from 22nd July to the 14th October 2011 and if you want to contribute your views you can find full details of the consultation and how to respond on the HSE Website at – http://consultations.hse.gov.uk/consult.ti/cd235/consultationHome.
The primary message is that non-compliance is becoming a more costly option. The HSE’s Programme Director is quoted as stating:
“The Government has agreed that it is right that those who break the law should pay their fair share of the costs to put things right – and not the public purse. These proposals provide a further incentive for people to operate within the law.”
The clear aim of the government is to encourage all organisations to be pro-active in ensuring they comply with health and safety legislation rather than waiting for an HSE inspector to call and identify problems before acting to correct them.
This is the realm of Health and Safety Audits that examine all aspects of your health and safety. One objective of an audit is to identify areas of non-compliance. Another is to recommend changes that can save costs in other areas of your organisation such as sickness absence, recruitment, training or insurance costs.
Just like your financial systems, your health and safety systems can benefit from being audited and there has never been a greater incentive for doing so than now.
Contact one of our sales team to discuss how we can help you to comply with the law and save yourself money at the same time.
Tags: HSE Intervention Fees, Improvement Notice, inspection, Prohibition Notice