Since the new guidelines from the Sentencing Council came into force in February 2016, the number of health and safety prosecutions against directors has tripled and UK businesses have seen a dramatic rise in the value of health and safety fines.
In fact, in 2016, the largest 20 health and safety fines totalled £38.6 million. This is a significant increase, especially when compared to the previous two years, whose largest 20 fines totalled £13.5 million in 2015 and £4.3 million in 2014.
These new guidelines place a much higher burden on directors and senior managers for ensuring health and safety in their organisations, and make it increasingly likely that they could go to prison for both intentional breaches or a flagrant disregard for their responsibilities.
Avoid these new debilitating fines by conducting a thorough risk management and health and safety review of your premises and policies. In addition, you should solicit the input of your employees, since asking them to identify their health and safety concerns can be invaluable in finding hazards that would not have been obvious to senior management.
Bollington can help you as a business owner, Director or senior manager with a bespoke programme of risk management - before or even after an incident - and with appropriate Directors' and Officers' insurance cover, helping you to avoid the potential of costly fines and damage to your personal reputation that could be incurred by an HSE prosecution. If you need help and advice, please call us for an informal conversation - we will gladly assist wherever possible.
