The rate which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) charges under its Fee for
Intervention (FFI)
cost recovery scheme has increased from £129 to £154 per hour as of 6 April 2019.
The fee is payable by organisations found by the health and safety watchdog to be
in material breach of health and safety law and, in terms of the requirements, the
employer (or self-employed person) is required to pay
the HSE for the time it takes to identify what is wrong and to put things right.
A material breach of health and safety law is something which an inspector considers serious enough that
they need to formally write to the business requiring action to be taken to deal with the issue.
Essentially, if the inspector gives a notification of contravention (NoC) after the visit, a fee will be payable.
The HSE has emphasised that organisations which do not break the law will not be liable for any payment.
In other words, duty holders who comply with the law, or where there is no material breach, will not be
charged FFI for any work that HSE does with them.
Therefore, where an inspector simply gives business advice, either verbal or written, no payment is required.
The FFI cost recovery scheme was designed and introduced in October 2012 with the aim of shifting some of
the costs of regulating health and safety at work from the taxpayer to those responsible for material breaches.
See previous Blog for FFI https://walkersafety.co.uk/2013/11/ffi-a-year-on/
Contact us for further information.
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has called for penalties that “reflect the gravity” of offences and greater use of measures such as director disqualification and retraining, as new sentencing guidelines for gross negligence manslaughter come into effect.
