The Financial Case For Managing Health and Safety
In 2016 the UK Sentencing Council’s Definitive Guideline for the Sentencing of Health and Safety Offences, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety and Hygiene Offences were implemented.
The 2016/17 data on prosecutions released by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) shows a large annual increase in fines. In 2015/16, the total fines for health and safety offences was £38.8 million. This rose to £69.9 million in 2016/17.
The principal focus of the Guideline is to ensure fines are ‘sufficiently substantial to have a real economic impact which will bring home to both management and shareholders the need to comply with health and safety legislation’ (source HSE).
The average fine per case in 2016/17 was approximately £126,000, which is more than double the average fine in 2015/16. The ten highest fines in 2017 ranged between £1.35m and £3m.
There is no doubt that the sharp increase in fines over the past two years is the subject of regular discussion in boardrooms up and down the country.
The increasing level of fines demonstrates the importance of organisations taking preventative action, such as:
- regularly reviewing health and safety policies and procedures
- ensuring risk assessments and method statements are robust and adequately reflect the risks involved, including those to non-employees
- providing refresher training to staff
- ensuring the proactive and effective management of health and safety in the workplace
- completing Fire Risk Assessment, Health and Safety Audits, Workplace Inspections and specific risk assessments.
Safety and Health 1st can provides professional advice and guidance to assist with preventative action, through a package of retained services which aims to ensure your organisation does not suffer from the uninsured costs, losses and bad publicity associated with workplace accidents.