Paying for enforcement — fee for intervention


The HSE’s “fee for intervention” (FFI) cost recovery scheme came into effect on 1 October 2012 as a result of the Health and Safety (Fees) Regulations 2012. The regulations require the HSE to recover its costs for carrying out its regulatory functions from employers and other duty holders found to be “in material breach” of health and safety law. The fees are currently based on an hourly rate of £129.


The HSE explains that: “A material breach is where you have broken the law and the inspector judges this is serious enough for them to notify you in writing. This will either be a notification of contravention, an improvement or prohibition notice, or a prosecution.”


Examples of material breaches include not providing guards or other safety devices to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery, and material containing asbestos being left in a poor or damaged condition, resulting in the potential for asbestos fibres to be released.


FFI only applies where the HSE is the enforcing authority. Other health and safety regulators, including local authorities, cannot recover their costs under the scheme. And it does not apply where businesses already pay fees to the HSE through other arrangements. For example, it does not apply to licensable work with asbestos carried out by license-holders under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, as the licence fee contains an element to cover the costs of inspection. See Chapter 6 for information on Asbestos.


Government ministers made clear that the aim of the scheme is to shift the cost of health and safety regulation from the public purse to businesses and organisations that break health and safety laws. The HSE says that it will also encourage businesses and organisations to comply with health and safety law in the first place, or to put matters right quickly when they do not, and that it will discourage those who undercut their competitors by not complying with the law and putting people at risk.


A 2014 HSE Triennial Review report was critical of the FFI cost recovery scheme and recommended that “unless the link between ‘fines’ and funding can be removed, or the benefits can be shown to outweigh the detrimental effects, and it is not possible to minimise those effects, FFI should be phased out.” However, a second independent review of FFI published in September 2014 concluded that the cost recovery schemehad proven effective and should stay. It found that HSE inspectors had implemented the scheme “consistently and fairly” and found no evidence to suggest that its introduction had influenced enforcement policy decisions. The second review was conducted by an independent panel chaired by Liverpool University professor of public policy Alan Harding. Other participants included representatives of the general GMB trade union, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Department for Work and Pensions.


The latest FFI invoice data published on the HSE website shows that the number of invoices issued, the number of companies invoiced and the average cost of a single invoice have all significantly increased since the scheme was introduced in October 2012.


The first FFI invoices were issued in January 2013 and covered the period from October to November 2012. The HSE issued 1,418 invoices to 1,399 companies, raising £727,645. The average cost of a single invoice was £513.15. In comparison, the latest figures show that that the HSE issued 2,922 invoices in August 2015 for the period from April to May 2015 to 2,869 companies, raising more than £2million. The average cost of a single invoice had increased to £715.18. Nineteen invoices issued in August 2015 were for over £10,000, compared with only one in January 2013. The manufacturing sector received the most invoices (1,117) followed by the construction industry (946).