Penalties — notices and fines



The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA) provides for three main systems of enforcement. These are:


• improvement notices;



• prohibition notices; and



• fines or imprisonment.



When an improvement notice is served, the employer must take action to put things right within a specified time. If the employer fails to comply, a prohibition notice may be issued, stopping the operation that is causing the hazard.



Inspectors have the power to issue an immediate prohibition notice, stopping an operation if there is a risk of immediate danger. A deferred prohibition notice may also be issued. Appeals against these notices must be made to an employment tribunal and can lead to a stay (delay) of execution of an improvement notice. There can be no delay in implementing a prohibition notice if the inspector believes that the risk of serious personal injury is imminent.



The maximum sentence for health and safety offences depends on the date that the offence was committed and the court that passes sentence. The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008 increased penalties for some offences committed after 16 January 2009. Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 increased the level of most fines available for magistrates’ courts to an unlimited fine (previously £20,000 for most health and safety offences) for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015. Prison sentences of up to six months (if the case is heard in the magistrates’ courts) or two years (if the case is heard in the Crown Court) can now be handed down for most health and safety offences.



Judges can impose fines which consume or exceed company profits, even in cases where an employer has not been found to have deliberately cut corners to make a profit (R v FJ Chalcroft Construction Ltd [2008] EWCA Crim 770).



In 2015-16 the HSE and (in Scotland) the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) prosecuted 696 cases with at least one conviction secured in 660 of these cases, a conviction rate of 95%. Enforcing bodies issued a total of 11,403 notices and HSE and COPFS prosecutions led to fines totalling £38.3 million, compared to the £18.1 million in fines from 2014-15. The HSE says the bulk of this increase is due to 14 large fines that were higher than the maximum fine imposed in 2014-15.


The annual figures are published on the HSE website (www.hse.gov.uk/Statistics/enforcement.htm).