IOSH Attacks Lenient H&S Offence Punishment

The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has drawn attention to the the stark contrast between the fines for financial irregularities and the fines for health and safety.

British Airways was fined £121.5m for illegally fixing fuel-surcharges this month; however, the average fine for health and safety offences involving death is only £43,000, leading to complaints that the fines handed out by the courts for health and safety offences are too minimal in comparison.

The biggest ever fine in the UK for a health and safety offence was £15m, which was handed out to Transco in 2005 over the Larkhall explosion that killed a family of four in 1999. In England and Wales the biggest fine was £7.5m, which was given to Balfour Beatty after four people died in the Hatfield rail crash.

In the UK the average fine for health and safety offences in the crown court, where unlimited fines are available, is roughly £33,000. In the magistrate’s courts, where the maximum fine is £20,000, the average fine is roughly £4,000.

Lisa Fowlie, President of IOSH, says:

"While price-fixing is a very serious offence, we can’t understand how this offence is more than eight times more serious than killing a family of four, and more than 16 times more serious than a rail crash that claimed four lives.

We hope that with the new Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act coming into force, that this disparity between the most serious health and safety offences and financial offences like this one committed by BA will shrink.

But we need the courts to send the right message – that killing people is at least as serious as financial irregularities – if we’re to improve the UK’s health and safety record. 241 workers died in 2006/07, but 241 fines of £43,000 is only just over £10 million. Such a great disparity cannot be justified. The punishment needs to fit the crime.”

Source: IOSH News Release


 
 
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