AWARE? The HSE now charge for visits

[safetynut]

The HSE’s much-publicised cost-recovery scheme, Fee for Intervention (FFI), came into force on Monday October 1st

Under the Health and Safety (Fees) Regulations 2012, the HSE has a duty to charge employers who break the law for the costs associated with the regulator’s related inspection, investigation and enforcement activities. 

The Regulations are designed to shift the cost of health and safety enforcement from the public purse to businesses that contravene health and safety laws.

Under (FFI), when an HSE inspector visits your business and identifies a “material breach” of health and safety law, you will have to pay a fee based on a rate of £124 per hour.

The fee will be applied to each intervention where a material breach is identified and any other associated work. Where the material breach is identified during a visit, costs for the whole visit are recoverable, from as soon as the HSE inspector enters the site to when they leave.

And it don’t stop there?

The fee will also cover all work to ensure that the breach is remedied, as well as any investigation or enforcement action up to the point where the HSE’s intervention has been concluded, or prosecution proceedings begin.

A “material breach” is defined as a contravention of health and safety law that requires an inspector to issue a written notice to the duty-holder. This may be notification of a contravention, an Improvement or Prohibition Notice, or a prosecution, and must include the law that the inspector’s opinion relates to; the reasons for their opinion; and notification that a fee is payable to the HSE.

Imagine getting a visit from a HSE Inspector - even the most basic safety mistakes in your workplace will attract a FFI so please ensure your processes and procedures are carefully monitored for compliance as I’m sure the potential expense from a visit will certainly effect your bottom line.

 

[kulture]

So what defines a material breach?

 

[safetynut]

Being technical a material breach is

A “material breach” is defined as a contravention of health and safety law that requires an inspector to issue a written notice to the duty-holder. This may be notification of a contravention, an Improvement or Prohibition Notice, or a prosecution, and must include the law that the inspector’s opinion relates to; the reasons for their opinion; and notification that a fee is payable to the HSE.

 

[kulture]

OK. So you have to be bad, and very unsafe to get a material breach.

I know health and safety affects all businesses, and the government site http://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/index.htm is very helpful. It is not only a useful reference source, but it is a straightforward guide to what to do.

They also have this useful leaflet http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg420.htm which provides guidance for employers on when and how to get advice on health and safety.

They do say most businesses do not have to get external advice.

In your experience, how many ordinary businesses actually get material breaches.

 

[safetynut]

The guidance given by the HSE is very good and is getting better but it's not publicised enough or made aware to businesses.

With regards to a material breach one may not realise how trivial or bad a breach could be.

We inspect Construction sites, offices and restaurants on a daily basis and you'll be surprised how many non compliance issues are observed (material breaches) fire escapes blocked, fire escapes locked, asbestos materials disturbed, machines imported from different countries which do not comply with EU requirements, untrained personnel.

It could be as simply as People seen working on a flat roof with no edge protection which is a material breach of the working at height regulations this could be an instant prosecution, and has been quite common resulting in companies being fined in the region of £5000.00 and no one even got hurt.

The likelihood of a business getting a visit is a discussion for another day..

Will the FFI work? only time will tell but someone has got to pay their wages and steering away from the public purse is good a thing, would you agree?

 

[kulture]

The guidance given by the HSE is very good and is getting better but it's not publicised enough or made aware to

Yes, it would be nice if the HSE guidence was promoted and publicised more. It would have been nice if you had included a link to it in your initial post. Rather than just self promotion.

 

[safetynut]

The link to the horses mouth

Here

The key part of FFI is a material breach, would an ordinary business know that from looking at the page! would an ordinary business know where to look? Would an ordinary business understand what they need to do?

How many businesses know about the FFI and will fall foul of the scheme.

I agree there may be a slant on self promotion but from my experience (well over 15 years in the industry) as with all health and safety, a simple link to information may not be enough businesses need reassurance and guidelines diluted to their circumstances, and want to know what they need to do without the technical legal jargon and industry buzzwords - so they can concentrate on doing what they do best. running their own business.

A lot of it is down to common sense but that is not that common.

 

[kulture]

You are of course correct, that link you provide is somewhat poor. Why not use this link http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse47.pdf which is a link for the guidence leaflet.

 

[kulture]

To be honest, I think this looks like a scare tactic. The thread title "AWARE? The HSE now charge for visits" is not really true. In fact they only charge you for their time if you are in material breach.

 

[DDAFIRE]

Will the FFI work? only time will tell but someone has got to pay their wages and steering away from the public purse is good a thing, would you agree?

Completely disagree - The govenment make enough money from the fines that the courts dish out to the big corporations to pay their wages many times over.

IMO this is a giant leap backwards for the HSE, I mean, it only works if the people committing the breaches are doing so knowingly (in which case they should be quite rightly punished financially), but for those business owners who may not know the ins and outs of all the h&S regulations to be charged such a ridiculous fee is wrong, and totally unfair.

Health and Safety has a bad enough stigma attached to it already, and IMO this move will only serve to make it worse.