The Health and Safety Offences Act 2008 came into force on Friday, 16 January 2009. This new Act will increase penalties and provide courts with greater sentencing powers for those who break health and safety law, and is being welcomed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). 

Coming in the wake of the Corporate Manslaughter Act and a clampdown by the Health & Safety Executive, this new Act will further turn up the heat on directors and senior managers. Breaches of regulations could in future become criminal matters. We are likely to see tougher punishments, including more jail sentences, imposed on people in positions of authority.

Judith Hackitt (The Chair of HSE) welcomes the introduction of the new Act and has said, "This Act gives lower courts the power to impose higher fines for some health and safety offences. (Maximum penalties which lower courts can impose will increase from £5,000 to £20,000).  It is right that there should be a real deterrent to those businesses and individuals that do not take their health and safety responsibilities seriously. Everyone has the right to work in an environment where risks to their health and safety are properly managed, and employers have a duty in law to deliver this". 

To the many employers who do manage health and safety well, they will have nothing to fear from this change in law.  There are no new duties on employers or businesses, and HSE is not changing its approach to how it enforces health and safety law.  HSE retain the important safeguards that ensure that inspectors use their powers sensibly and proportionately and we will continue to target those who knowingly cut corners, put lives at risk and who gain commercial advantage over competitors by failing to comply with the law.

Directors and senior managers can no longer afford to be lax about health and safety. They need to take a systematic approach, ensure risk assessments are carried out and proper procedures are in place to minimise risks and help protect their staff and the public at large.

The Act fulfils a longstanding Government and HSE commitment to provide the courts with greater sentencing powers for health and safety crimes.  The effect of the Act is to:

• raise the maximum fine which may be imposed in the lower courts to £20,000 for most health and safety offences; 
• make imprisonment an option for more health and safety offences in both the lower and higher courts; 
• make certain offences, which are currently triable only in the lower courts, triable in either the lower or higher courts.

The new penalties in the Act are not retrospective and will not apply to offences committed before it comes into force i.e. offences before 16 January 2009.   

The full text of the Act can be found at:  http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080020_en_1