In February 2016, we will see an increase in the amount a company is fined if they’re found not complying with health and safety laws.
Over the years, there has been concern that the amount large corporations are being fined for failing to meet health and safety regulations, were too low. As it stands currently, if someone is fatally injured at work due to health and safety negligence, the fines that they will face should be no less than £100,000, and £500,000 for corporate manslaughter. This may seem like a lot of money, but to organisations turning over in excess of £100m a year, the fine will pretty much so un-noticed.
In November 2015, new guidelines for the sentencing of health and safety cases were produced by the Sentencing Council. These guidelines, which will apply to all sentencing in health and safety and corporate manslaughter cases, it will become mandatory for every court to follow these guidelines while carrying out health and safety sentences brought in front of a judge in or after February 2016, regardless of when the offence has taken place.
Under the new guidelines, large companies, companies with a turnover exceeding £50 million, that commit health and safety offences, will be fined up to £10 million. For Medium sized companies, companies with a turnover of £2m - £10m, they could expect a fine up to £4 million, and micro-companies, companies with a turnover of less than £2million, could be fined up to £450,000. For cases of corporate manslaughter the fines that companies could be facing are even higher, with fines in excess of £20 million for large organisations.
It is important to highlight here that people don’t need to be injured for the company to be penalised. If it has come to light that an organisation has repeatedly failed to meet health and safety regulations – even if there was not an accident caused by the negligence the company will still occur a penalty. This penalty will be determined by the court based on 1) the seriousness of the risk created and 2) The likelihood of an incident arising.
You can avoid these hefty fines by doing the following:
- Make sure that your organisation has an effective risk assessment and risk management system is place, including identifying hazards, and putting in place appropriate precautions to warn visitors and employees of the hazard or potential hazard.
- Ensure that all your health and safety polices are clearly communicated and enforced.
- Make sure you are providing regular support and training to your employees to ensure that they continually follow the correct health and safety regulations.
- Make sure that your approach to health and safety is consistent – especially if you are the owner or manager of a company that owns a lot of different sites.
Here at label source, we help companies improve their health and safety standards in their work place on a daily basis by providing a large range of health and safety signs designed specifically to create awareness of potential hazards in the work place.
Our safety signs department is dedicated to signs raising awareness of potential hazards including hazard warning signs, mandatory safety signs, First aid and safe conditions signs and fire equipment safety signs.
