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Questions raised over health and safety compliance plans

17 October 2011

Small businesses in the UK could find plans to charge firms that fail to meet health and safety standards damage their operations.

This is the claim made by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which has declared that imposing fees for intervention and subsequent action in cases where an inspector has found a material fault may harm relationships between the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and enterprises.

In its submission to a consultation on the subject, the FSB noted the plans could be perceived as a way of generating money rather than a means of boosting compliance, with organizations potentially forced to pay at least £750 if their case results in a letter.

The industry group suggested that extending the cost recovery system may not improve the number of businesses meeting health and safety standards, particularly as small and micro enterprises will be hit with the same penalties as large organizations.

Following on from a 35 per cent cut in the HSE's budget that has been announced, the FSB stated that small firms may be suspicious about their inspections being used to raise money and could be less inclined to ask for help with compliance than they have previously been.

"Most small businesses do not have the same resources that larger firms have to buy-in expert help and yet they are required to be experts in a wide range of complicated regulations," explained John Walker, FSB National Chairman.

However, in recent comments the President of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers called for tighter regulation and for failure to report workplace injuries to become an offence for which employers could be prosecuted.

David Bott told Post Online that such a move would boost the number of bosses who comply with standards and improve safety in UK workplaces.

Data from the HSE for 2009-10 showed there were 152 fatal injuries at work over the year and 233,000 reportable incidents, equating to 840 accidents per 100,000 employees.