|
26
September 2002
CCA
Sets out Concerns over HSE Procedures relating to
Prosecution of Crown Servants
The
Centre for Corporate Accountability is publishing
for the first time the procedures agreed between the
Cabinet Office and the Heath and Safety Executive
(HSE) on enforcing health and safety law in Crown
Bodies.
"The
current HSE policy gives immunity to managers of
Crown Bodies.
said
David Bergman, Director of the Centre for Corporate
Accountability.
"We
have written to the Director General of the Health
and Safety Executive setting out the reasons why it
should revise it’s policy towards Crown bodies
and their servants. Crown Censure proceedings should
be held in public and decisions whether or not to
prosecute crown servants – including senior managers
- should be based on exactly the same factors as those
involving senior managers of private companies."
To
download letter to the HSE Director General, Click
Here (PDF)
Under present law crown bodies can not be prosecuted
for health and safety offences. Instead there is a
procedure of "Crown Censure" – set
out in the Cabinet Office memo.
Individual Crown Servants – that is to say employees
of the Crown – do not, however, have immunity.
They can be prosecuted – though the memo indicates
that this is possible only in the most limited
circumstances.
The CCA – which is of the view that Crown immunity
should be entirely removed – has the following
concerns about the current policy as set out in this
memo.
| 1. |
It
states that Crown Censures should be held in private.
In the CCA’s view they should be held in
public – not behind closed doors |
| 2. |
The
policy concerning the prosecution of individual
Crown Servants – which would include senior
managers – should be entirely revised
Individual
Crown agents have no Crown immunity but the
policy adopted by the HSE in effect provides
them with it.
The HSE policy, which appears from the Memo
to have been negotiated with the Crown in 1975,
only allows prosecution of individuals when:
| • |
there
is a wilful or reckless disregard of health
and safety; |
| • |
a
deliberate act or omission which imperiled
their own safety or the safety of others; |
This,
however, is a much higher burden of proof than
the HSE requires to prosecute directors and
managers of companies and other organisations
(which are not crown bodies). This only requires
evidence of 'neglect'.
It
is also, in the CCA's view, inappropriate that
HSE's prosecution policy towards Crown Servants
should be based on private negotiations with
the Cabinet Office.
The
CCA criticisms comes a week after the Royal
Mint and its managers escaped prosecution over
the death
of John Wynne
|
For
more information on Crown Bodies and the obtain a
copy of the HSE procedures, click
here
For
Further information contact 020 7490 4494
Return to Press Releases
Notes to Editors
-
Para 24 of Memo states states that
"Under Section 48(2) of the HSW Act, persons
in the service of the Crown may be prosecuted for
health and safety offences, and, if convicted, fined,
or for certain offences imprisoned. Managers, as
well as other employees who are personally culpable,
should not escape prosecution simply because they
are Crown servants. However, the HSE gave assurances
in 1975 that an individual Crown servant would be
prosecuted only in the same circumstances as an
individual in non-Crown employment, for example
where there was wilful or reckless disregard of
health and safety requirements. There is no question
of individuals being prosecuted in substitution
for the Crown body, or for honest mistakes, or because
of defects in management organisation. It is therefore
highly unlikely that civil servants would be prosecuted
except, for example, through a deliberate act or
omission by them which imperilled their own safety,
or the safety of others.
|
