Other key changes and developments

[ch 3: pages 47-48]

• The HSE is establishing a new building safety regulator to oversee the safe design, construction and occupation of high-risk buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire;

• HSE prosecutions fell to a five year low – a decrease of 23% from the previous year;

• Valero Energy UK was fined £5 million last year, the joint third highest ever fine for a health and safety offence;

• Key regulators, including the HSE and others, are having to do their work with on average 50% less funding than 10 years ago, according to the Unchecked campaign coalition;

• The hourly rate under the HSE’s “fee for intervention” cost-recovery scheme has increased to £157;

• The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter charges following explosions at a wood flour mill in Bosley, Cheshire in July 2015 which killed four people;

• The sole director and shareholder of a small business received a four-year jail sentence after being found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence of one of his employees;

• Former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent David Duckenfield was found not guilty of the gross negligence manslaughter of 95 people who died at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground; and

• Labour MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife Claire Baker now has cross party support for her culpable homicide bill which aims to “plug the justice deficit”.