Making Companies Safe - what works? (CCA ... - Unite the Union

Chapter Five
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has described enforcement as:
“activities directly associated with ensuring duty holders discharge their legal
duties. Techniques may include giving advice (written and oral), withdrawing
approvals, varying licences, serving notices, issuing cautions, prosecuting. The
term implies the possibility of escalation if the dutyholder does not act
appropriately.” 5
HSE and Local Authority (LA) inspectors enforce the law mainly in the context of preventative
inspections and investigations of workplaces.
During preventative inspections, HSE and LA inspectors will assess the extent to which
employers are complying with their legal duties and how effectively they are managing
workplace risks. Where standards are judged to be inadequate, inspectors attempt to prompt
employers to take remedial action by offering advice, or by imposing enforcement notices.
If the breach is serious enough, or if the company has failed to comply with advice or
enforcement notices in the past, the inspector should, in addition to taking remedial action,
consider whether or not to prosecute. 6
Prosecution following an inspection is intended to serve a number of different functions. For
instance, it is intended to deter the particular organisation from breaching the law in the
future and it also serves a more general deterrence purpose in that it indicates to other
organisations that they can expect to be punished if they are found to have broken the law.
It also, of course, serves the process of moral justice and criminal accountability.
HSE and LA inspectors also undertake investigations of workplaces following reports of a
dangerous occurrence, injury, ill-health or death, or to investigate a complaint. The HSE has
stated that:
“The aim of investigation is to identify the immediate and underlying causes of
the circumstances in question and to take necessary enforcement action to
ensure risks associated with the circumstances are controlled.” 7
Inspectors have the same powers available to them in relation to investigations as they do in
relation to inspections, and should use them in the same way – ensuring remedial action is
taken, and considering whether prosecution is appropriate. However, because some form of
harm, sometimes very serious, has taken place, inspectors are more likely to prosecute
following an investigation than following an inspection.
The Evidence
Inspections and Investigations
In an HSE discussion paper referred to by Hillage et al, Cosman reviews a number of studies
looking at the effectiveness of HSE’s inspection regime. One internal review conducted in
1991 found that planned inspections resulted in 70 per cent of inspectors’ requirements being
met, although the sample was not thought to be statistically sound. Cosman concluded that
the broad mix of techniques employed by HSE inspectors was ‘about right’. 8
A later review of the international literature on a range of inspection regimes, undertaken by
the Health and Safety Laboratory, found that: ‘almost all studies concluded that inspection
works’. ‘Inspection activity’ was broadly defined by the authors to include all core regulatory
activities such as planned inspections, reactive investigations and enforcement action (formal
and informal). 9 The review included a review study of the impact of enforcement by the 41