The Health and Safety Executive have introduced a Fee for Intervention scheme, which came into effect on 1st October 2012. Under this scheme, the HSE is entitled to recover its inspectors’ costs when an employer is found to be in material breach of health and safety regulations.
Under the terms of this new scheme, a material breach is defined as one where a HSE inspector feels that the contravention of a health and safety law is severe enough to require written notification to be sent to the employer. Examples of the written notifications involved are a notification of contravention, an improvement, a prohibition notice or a prosecution.
The Fee for Intervention will be charged at a rate of £124 per hour and the employer will be liable to cover the HSE’s costs, including inspection, investigation and taking action. The liability will continue up until the point where the intervention ends or a prosecution is started, meaning that affected employers could be faced with bills of thousands of pounds before any remedial measures are taken into consideration.
The FFI includes all work which is required of the HSE in order to identify and deal with such a material breach. Costs may be recovered for actions including the following;
- Writing letters and reports
- Preparing and serving improvement and prohibition notices
- Follow up work such as site visits, telephone calls, emails etc.
- Statements
- Costs incurred when involving any specialists or consultants to work on the case
- Researching and compiling information and evidence
- Assessing the findings and any documentary evidence
- Recording any findings, evidence, notifications and enforcement information
- Reviewing investigations to ensure matters are being dealt with appropriately
- Monitoring the progress of an investigation
The Fee for Intervention is due to be reviewed after one year of operation, with the review to be completed before three years have passed. Full information on the scheme can be found on the HSE website.
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