Wednesday 30 September 2009

Line managers Health and Safety Responsibility.

In June 2008, new legislation was released that increases penalties and provide courts with greater sentencing powers for those who flout health and safety legislation.

The legislation was changed as it is generally recognised that the level of fines for some health and safety offences are too low. The changes will ensure that sentences can now be more easily set at a level to deter businesses that do not take their health and safety management responsibilities seriously and further encourage employers and others to comply with the law.

The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008, will increase penalties and provide courts with greater sentencing powers for those who flout health and safety legislation.

The Act raises the maximum penalties that can be imposed for breaching health and safety regulations in the lower courts from £5,000 to £20,000 and the range of offences for which an individual can be imprisoned has also been broadened.

The Act, which covers Great Britain and Northern Ireland, came into force in January 2009.
The main points of the Act are;

Increasing penalties and providing the Courts with greater sentencing powers has been Government and HSE policy since the publication of the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement in June 2000.

The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008 was introduced as a Private Members Bill and piloted through the House of Commons by the Rt Hon Keith Hill MP and by the Rt Hon Lord Bruce Grocott in the House of Lords.

The effect of the Act is to:

a) raise the maximum fine which may be imposed in the lower courts to £20,000 for most health and safety offences;

b) make imprisonment an option for more health and safety offences in both the lower and higher courts;

c) make certain offences, which are currently triable only in the lower courts, triable in either the lower or higher courts.

The big question to be asked is how will this effect the line managers who are responsible for staff in their respective areas of control?

Under Health and Safety law, any individual in the workplace – including employees, management and directors – can be found guilty of Health and Safety offences which, under the new law, will bring with them imprisonment as an option for punishment. The maximum term of imprisonment is two years, which can also be accompanied by an unlimited fine.

So, if you are a line manager and need to ensure you are taking your responsibilities in this area seriously how best can you achieve this?

The use of information systems has been of extreme importance over the past decade for auditors and accountants to show best practice for financial matters. This has been further endorsed by legislation such as Sarbanes Oxley but health and safety still appears to take a back seat within the UK despite the change in consequence for line managers.

The use of an effective and fully audited policy and procedure management tool is an excellent way for managers at all levels within an organisation to ensure their respective teams are aware of and are suitably trained to understand and deploy health and safety procedures within the organisation.

Why should you insist that your employer goes to such lengths?

Labour MP Keith Hill, who introduced the Act, has said that imprisonment should only be appropriate in the most serious of cases. This is of little comfort given that sentencing is now a matter purely for Magistrates and Judges, who are without precedent and are yet to receive any guidance from the Sentencing Guidelines Council (which will be crucial).

Already this year we have seen the first sentences being imposed.

Watch out senior managers
Hill has said there’ll be a minimal increase in those going to jail as a result of this Act. Don’t be fooled. Given the new focus on the acts and omissions of senior managers in prosecutions brought under the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, it’s likely that the Prosecution will be tempted to send more and more senior managers away at the same time, particularly when public perception plays such an important role in high profile and multiple fatalities.

Simply put: if we cannot ‘get’ individuals for corporate manslaughter, we’ll get them for breaches of Health and Safety.


Innocent until proven guilty?
Even more worryingly, the new provisions for imprisonment pose a serious Human Rights issue. Individual defendants facing the possibility of imprisonment will be facing what’s called a ‘reverse burden of proof’.

As the law stands, the Prosecution has to prove very little – with respect to the general Health and Safety offences – before the burden of proof switches to the Defendant to show that he or she fulfilled their duty so far as was reasonably practicable.

There are a number of Policy and Procedure Management tools around that could support the manager in showing they had fulfilled their duty, one such solution is jComply from Tabaq Software.

jComply is a complete 360 process to introduce policies and procedures in the company. The system ensures that the concerned personnel reads the policy records, tests the employees knowledge about the related policy and generates comprehensive reports on the company's compliance level.

All activities are recorded so a line manager has evidence that such activities have occurred.

Certainly, if I was entering into line management today I would want to see such a supporting application introduced as a minimum to help me in this area.

Where do you sit within this area?

Let me know.  Visit http://www.jcomply.com/ or email sales@tabaqsoftware.com.