2: The health and safety inspection and enforcement regime


Key changes and developments since last year


• The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a new chair, Martin Temple;


• The Gangmasters Licensing Authority is to be renamed the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) as a result of the Immigration Act 2016, which came into force in May 2016. It is to operate across all sectors of the economy, supervised by a new Director of Labour Market Enforcement;


• For the first time, the High Court ruled in favour of victims of trafficking against a British company;


• Proactive health and safety inspections carried out by local authority environmental health departments have fallen by a massive 95% over the last five years;


• Construction union UCATT reports that the number of construction inspectors and inspections has fallen;


• The hourly rate charged under the HSE Fee for Intervention (FFI) cost recovery scheme has increased from £124 to £129 per hour. The number of invoices and companies invoiced, and the average amount invoiced have all significantly increased since the scheme was introduced in 2012;


• In February 2016, the Sentencing Council published new guidelines on penalties for health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences;


• Several million pound plus fines have been handed down to companies that have breached health and safety law;


• The HSE issued a new Enforcement Policy Statement in October 2015;


• The Defence Committee has called for the Ministry of Defence to be subject to corporate manslaughter charges without exception;


• There have been more corporate manslaughter convictions, bringing the total of companies convicted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 to around 20 since the Act came into force. More than fifty company directors have now been jailed for gross negligence manslaughter.